The Girl in the Fog Read online

  Before explaining his plan, Vogel gave a short preamble. ‘We all like being famous, even those who would never admit it. Something strange happens: at first you don’t think you need it, you think you can do without it and just lead a quiet life. And you’re right to think that way.’ He paused. ‘But as soon as the spotlight’s on you, something else happens. Suddenly, you discover you like the fact you’re no longer the anonymous individual you thought you were. You had no idea of it before, but now you actually start to like it. You feel different from the others, special, and you want this sensation never to end, you want it to last a long time, maybe for ever.’ Vogel folded his arms and took a step towards the blackboard, on which the date 23 December still stood out. He looked at it, then began walking back and forth. ‘Right now, everyone’s telling the story of Anna Lou, a young girl with red hair and freckles who vanished into thin air, but the kidnapper knows that what they’re really talking about is him and what he’s done. He’s succeeded, in so far as we aren’t yet able to identify him. He’s done a good job, and he’s proud of it. But it’s only a “good” job, nothing more. What does he need to make it a masterpiece? A stage. So if you can be sure of one thing, it’s that he won’t stay in the shadows and let someone else steal the limelight. He’ll want his share of fame: when it comes down to it, he’s the real star of the show. We’re here because he decided it, because he wanted it. Because he’s run the risk of being captured, of losing everything. That’s why he’s now going to claim the tribute that’s due to him.’ Vogel stopped and looked at all of them. ‘Somewhere out there, our man is savouring the sweet taste of celebrity. But it’s not enough for him, he wants more. And that’s how we’ll flush him out.’

  With this agenda, Borghi thought, the search for Anna Lou was officially relegated to the background. Now there was another priority.

  To flush out the monster.

  At this point, Vogel gave a concrete example of what he had in mind. First, he sent a couple of his men off to buy candles and small lights and a dozen cuddly toy cats. Then he ordered a few plain-clothes officers to place these objects by a low wall in front of the Kastners’ house.

  Now it was just a matter of waiting.

  By about 10 p.m., the main newspapers in the country all had their own correspondents outside Anna Lou’s house. It was the Stella Honer effect, but not only that.

  When, at dinner time, the TV news bulletins had broadcast that lots of anonymous, compassionate people had started leaving tokens of their solidarity with the Kastner family on the low wall in front of the house, many others had decided to follow their example. A spontaneous pilgrimage had begun, involving not only the townspeople of Avechot, but also people from the neighbouring valleys. Some had come all the way from the cities to take part in this demonstration of support.

  In her heartbreaking appeal, Anna Lou’s mother had promised her daughter that when she returned home she would finally get the cat she had so wanted. Vogel had homed in on those words, and now cats of all kinds – cuddly toys, rag dolls, ceramic figurines – surrounded the house, occupying the entire perimeter wall and much of the adjoining street. In the midst of them, candles and small lights produced a reddish glow, conveying a powerful sense of warmth in the sharp cold of the winter evening. Many of the gifts were accompanied by notes. Some were addressed to Anna Lou, some to her parents, and others were simply prayers.

  There was an almost constant coming and going of people. To stop an invasion of cars, the mayor had been forced to order the closure of the surrounding streets. Despite that, the area was under siege. But everything was done in an orderly fashion. The pilgrims would arrive, stand for a few minutes in silence, as if collecting their thoughts, then leave.

  Vogel had sent his own men to mix with the crowd. They were in plain clothes, wore well-hidden earphones and carried microphones concealed in the lapels of their jackets. Knowing that reporters were in the habit of listening in on police communications, Vogel had brought in sophisticated transmitters that were impossible to intercept.

  ‘Don’t forget that we’re interested in male suspects,’ Borghi said over the radio, ‘especially any men who are here on their own.’ Next to him, Vogel was keeping a close watch on the scene before him. They had deliberately positioned themselves on the edge of the crowd.

  This had been going on for a couple of hours now.

  They took it for granted that the kidnapper was a man because there were very few cases in the manuals of abductions of adolescents being carried out by adult women. This wasn’t just a statistical fact, it was a matter of common sense.

  They could even venture a profile of the perpetrator. Contrary to the popular conception, kidnappers were almost never either misfits or career criminals. They were usually normal individuals, averagely well educated, capable of interacting with others and, for that very reason, able to conceal their behaviour and pass unobserved. Their true nature was a secret they guarded jealously. They were clever and far-sighted. All this made them hard to identify.

  ‘All quiet here, over,’ one of the officers said into his radio. Each of them had been instructed to report every ten minutes.

  Vogel felt the need to intervene with a little speech, to make sure the tension didn’t drop. ‘If the kidnapper really does come here this evening, he knows we’ll be here, but doesn’t care, he wants to feel the sensation of walking undisturbed in the middle of those who are hunting for him.’ But there was an effective way to spot him. ‘Don’t forget that he’s here because he wants to enjoy the spectacle. If we’re lucky, that won’t be enough for him: he’ll want to take a souvenir away with him.’

  His recommendation was to concentrate, not on those who brought a gift, but on those who surreptitiously tried to remove something.

  Just then, Vogel and Borghi noticed a strange movement in the crowd. It was as if someone had given a silent command and all those present had turned in the same direction. The two officers now did so, too, and realised that what had drawn their attention was the sudden appearance of Anna Lou’s parents in the doorway of the house.

  Bruno had his arm around his wife’s shoulders. They were flanked by members of the brotherhood, who were all wearing little amethyst crucifixes and had arranged themselves in a semicircle, as if to protect the Kastners. Immediately, the TV cameras turned to the front door of the house.

  Although she was obviously exhausted, it was once again Maria Kastner who spoke, addressing the small crowd. ‘My husband and I wanted to thank you all. This is a very difficult time in our lives, but your affection and our faith in the Lord are a great comfort.’ Then she pointed to the array of kittens and candles. ‘Anna Lou would be happy about all this.’

  From the members of the brotherhood there rose a unison ‘Amen’.

  The crowd burst into applause.

  They all seemed moved, but Vogel didn’t believe in their compassion. On the contrary, he was convinced that many were there because of the media stir and were driven by curiosity, nothing more. Where were you all on Christmas Day, when this family really needed solace?

  Borghi was thinking the same thing. While less cynical than Vogel, he couldn’t help pondering on how things had changed in just a few days. The morning they had gone to see the Kastners, there had been nobody outside the house apart from the van with the ‘vultures’. He recalled Vogel’s applause and how it had echoed through the silent neighbourhood. Borghi still wasn’t sure what that act meant, or why, on getting into the car immediately afterwards, Vogel had felt the need to say of Bruno Kastner, ‘The man’s dying to tell us something.’

  While Anna Lou’s parents, still guarded by the members of the brotherhood, were being greeted by some of those present, a voice came over the radio. ‘To your right, sir, near the end of the street: the boy in the black hooded top has just stolen something.’ Vogel and Borghi turned simultaneously in the direction indicated. It took them a while to spot him in the crowd.

  The teenager was wearing a de
nim jacket over his top and his hood was pulled down over his head to conceal his face. He had probably taken advantage of that moment when everyone was distracted to appropriate something, which he was now hiding under his clothes as he hurried away.

  ‘He took a cuddly kitten, I saw him,’ the officer assured them over the radio.

  Borghi signalled to another officer who was closer to the route taken by the boy.

  ‘I have him,’ he said over the radio. ‘I have his face. I’ll stop him.’

  ‘No,’ Vogel said peremptorily. ‘I don’t want him to suspect anything.’

  In the meantime, the boy had got on a skateboard and was speeding away undisturbed.

  Borghi was incredulous about Vogel’s decision. ‘Why don’t we at least follow him?’

  ‘Think what would happen if one of the reporters who are here saw that,’ Vogel replied without losing sight of the suspect.

  He was right, Borghi hadn’t considered that.

  Vogel turned to face him. ‘He’s a boy on a skateboard, how far can he go? We have his face, we’ll find him again.’

  30 December

  Seven days after the disappearance

  The roadside restaurant was packed.

  On the window overlooking the petrol pump, the words Happy Holidays were still visible. The owner was going back and forth between the kitchen and the tables, making sure that everyone was served and satisfied. He’d had to hire more staff to deal with the sudden invasion of customers. There were reporters, TV technicians, news photographers, but also ordinary citizens who had come to Avechot to see for themselves the places mentioned in the story the whole country was talking about.

  Vogel called them ‘horror tourists’.

  Many had faced a long journey with their families. There were quite a few children, and there was a euphoric atmosphere in the room, as if they were on an outing. At the end of the day, they would take souvenir photographs home with them as well as the feeling that they had taken part, however marginally, in a media event that fascinated millions of people. They seemed not to care that, a few hundred metres away, dog units and frogmen, as well as search teams and forensics, were at work looking for any trace, any clue as to the fate of a sixteen-year-old girl. Vogel had predicted it, and it had come to pass: the media uproar had convinced his superiors to ignore budget restrictions and grant him the resources he needed. They would do everything they could not to lose face in the public spotlight.

  Vogel was sitting at the same table he had occupied on Christmas Day, when he was the restaurant’s only customer. As usual, he was writing meticulously in his black notebook with his silver fountain pen as he ate.

  This morning, he was wearing a grey-green tweed suit and a dark tie. His elegance was in marked contrast to the other customers. But that was how it should be. He needed to mark the difference between himself and the rowdy, coarse humanity around him. The more he observed them, the more he realised something important.

  They had already forgotten Anna Lou.

  The silent heroine of the story had been relegated to the background. And her silence was a pretext for other people’s chatter, for their being able to say anything they wanted about her and her brief life. The media were doing it, but so were ordinary people – in the street, at the supermarket, in the bars. Without any shame. Vogel had predicted this, too. Whenever it happened, a strange mechanism was set off. Real events turned into a kind of serial.

  A crime occurred every seven seconds.

  But only an infinitesimal number of them had newspaper articles, TV news items, entire episodes of talk shows devoted to them. In this minority of cases, criminal and psychiatric experts were called in, psychologists, even philosophers. Rivers of ink were spilled, and hours and hours of the TV schedules given over to the case. This could all go on for weeks, sometimes for months. If you were lucky, for years.

  What nobody said was that a crime could give rise to a genuine industry.

  A crime well told generated excellent results in terms of audience share and could bring in millions in sponsorship and advertising to a network, all for the minimum outlay.

  A correspondent, a camera and a cameraman.

  If a striking crime – like a terrible homicide or an inexplicable disappearance – happened in a small community, during the months of media overexposure that community would see a growth in the presence of visitors and consequently its own wealth.

  Nobody could explain why one crime suddenly became more popular than others. But everyone agreed that there was an imponderable element.

  Vogel had a particular intuition about this, a kind of sixth sense, to which he owed his fame.

  Except in the case of the Mutilator.

  He mustn’t forget the lesson he had learned then. But considering the impact that Anna Lou’s disappearance was having, this was a great opportunity to redeem himself.

  Obviously, he couldn’t expect everything to happen according to the script he had in his head. In the days following the spontaneous pilgrimage to the Kastners’ house, a number of unpleasant episodes had occurred.

  The inhabitants of Avechot, who at first had been passionate in their participation, had suddenly started to keep their distance. It was a natural effect of overexposure. The media had begun to invade everyone’s lives. And since there were still no answers, they had spread a sense in the public that the solution to the mystery was hidden somewhere in those houses, among those people.

  It wasn’t yet a specific accusation, but it was rather like one.

  In Avechot, they had always been very suspicious of strangers, and becoming the object of a process of thinly veiled defamation had accentuated their suspicion. The brotherhood, in particular, had shown signs of not appreciating all this media attention.

  At first, the inhabitants had avoided the cameras. Then they had started giving brusque, sometimes angry answers to the reporters’ questions. In such an incandescent climate, one of rage ready to explode, it was inevitable that someone would pay the price.

  That someone was a young outsider who had come to the town to look for work. His only fault, or carelessness, had been to approach a local girl to ask for information. Unfortunately for him, this had been seen by customers in a bar, who had first threatened him, then resorted to force and beaten him up.

  After lunch, as he was taking advantage of another day of winter sun to walk back to the operations room, Vogel saw Prosecutor Mayer waiting for him in the forecourt in front of the gym.

  From her expression, it was obvious he couldn’t expect a pleasant conversation.

  She came towards him resolutely, her heels echoing on the asphalt. ‘You can’t come here, sow doubts in these people’s minds, and then think nothing will happen,’ she said in an accusatory tone.

  ‘It was all their doing,’ Vogel retorted. When he had set foot in the valley he had found himself up against a community that was even more confused than it was frightened. Huddled there in the mountains, they had assumed they were safe from the ugliness of the world. They weren’t prepared to live in a state of uncertainty. And even now, they were convinced that the evil had come from outside. But deep in their hearts, they harboured the suspicion that it had always been among them, nurtured in silence, protected. And Vogel knew that this terrified them more than anything else.

  ‘Exactly what I was afraid of has happened,’ Mayer said. ‘You’ve mounted a show.’

  ‘Do you know a single case of a runaway teenager that hasn’t been resolved within a matter of days?’ The question sounded like a challenge. ‘By now, we should be ruling that out as a possibility and concentrating on other things. We’re no longer dealing with a girl who’s run away from home, don’t you understand?’

  On Vogel’s express orders, Mayer hadn’t been informed about the boy on the skateboard whom they’d spotted three evenings earlier outside the Kastners’ house.

  ‘Even supposing we have a crime on our hands, that doesn’t give you the right to get the peo
ple of Avechot riled up, or to bring in TV crews and photographers. Because you brought them here, don’t deny it.’

  Vogel had no desire to stay and listen to her complaints. It had been a good day so far, and the walk from the restaurant had given him renewed energy. So he turned his back on her, intending to go, then thought better of it and retraced his steps. ‘No screams,’ he said.

  Mayer looked at him uncomprehendingly.

  ‘Anna Lou didn’t scream as she was being taken away. If she had, the neighbours would have heard. All I had to do to attract attention was clap my hands. I stood outside her house and clapped, and everybody looked out of their windows.’

  ‘Are you insinuating that the girl followed someone of her own free will?’

  Vogel fell silent, letting the idea germinate in the prosecutor’s head.

  ‘She trusted him, looked him in the face,’ Mayer said. ‘And if she looked him in the face …’

  Vogel completed the sentence for her. ‘If she looked him in the face, then Anna Lou’s already dead.’ He followed this statement with a long pause.

  Mayer’s expression had changed. The anger had been replaced by something else. Dismay.

  ‘We can wait for things to take their course or we can prevent it happening again,’ Vogel concluded. ‘Which do you prefer?’

  This time, he did walk away. The prosecutor stood there motionless for a few moments, until she heard a coughing fit that made her turn.

  Stella Honer was lurking behind the corner of the building, surreptitiously smoking a cigarette. Obviously, she had seen and heard everything. ‘If the public knew my little sins it’d be the end,’ she said in an amused tone, throwing the cigarette on the ground and crushing it with the tip of her shoe. ‘It’s hard enough for a woman to make her way, don’t you find?’ Then she turned serious. ‘He’s an arsehole, but he knows his job. And opportunities like this happen rarely in a prosecutor’s career.’

  Mayer watched her as she walked past, but didn’t reply.