On it was a photograph of a smiling teenage girl with red hair and freckles. Then a name, Anna Lou. And a question: Have you seen me? followed by a telephone number and some lines of text.
Vogel saw that the old man was trying to peer at his black notebook, so he closed it. Then he put the fork down on the plate. ‘Do you know her?’
‘I know the family. They’re good people.’ The man pulled one of the chairs out from under the table and sat down opposite Vogel. ‘What do you think happened to her?’
Vogel put his hands together under his chin. How many times had he been asked that question? It was always the same story. They seemed genuinely apprehensive, or made an effort to appear so, but in the end there was only curiosity. Morbid, pitiless curiosity. ‘Twenty-four hours,’ he said. The old man didn’t seem to understand the meaning of this reply, but before he could ask for clarification, Vogel went on, ‘On average, teenagers who run away from home can only stand keeping their mobile phones switched off for twenty-four hours. Then, inevitably, they have to call a friend or check if people are talking about them on the internet, and that’s how they’re located. Most come home after forty-eight hours anyway … So, for two days after their disappearance, unless they run into someone nasty or have an accident, there’s a strong possibility that things will end happily.’
The man seemed thrown by this. ‘And what happens then?’
‘Then they call me in.’
Vogel stood up, put his hand in his pocket and dropped a twenty-euro note on the table to pay for his breakfast. Then he headed for the exit, but before walking out the door he turned once again towards the proprietor of the restaurant. ‘Listen to me: don’t sell this place. In a little while, it’ll be full of people again.’
Outside, the day was cold but the sky was clear and everything was lit by a bright winter sun. Every now and then, a heavy goods lorry passed along the road and the displacement of air lifted the flaps of Vogel’s coat. He stood motionless, both hands plunged in his pockets, on the restaurant forecourt, next to the petrol pump. He was looking up.
A young man of about thirty came up behind him. He, too, was wearing a suit, a tie and a dark coat, although not a cashmere one. He had fair hair with a parting on one side and deep blue eyes. He looked earnest and good-natured. ‘Hello,’ he said. There was no reply. ‘I’m Officer Borghi,’ he persisted. ‘I was told to come and get you.’
Vogel still didn’t deign to respond, but continued to stare up at the sky.
‘The briefing starts in half an hour. They’re all there, as you requested.’
At this point, Borghi leaned forward and realised that Vogel was actually looking at something on the roof over the petrol pump.
A security camera pointing at the road.
Vogel finally turned towards him. ‘This road is the only access to the valley, am I right?’
Borghi didn’t even need to think about it. ‘Yes, sir. There’s no other way to get in or out. It runs straight through it.’
‘Good,’ Vogel said. ‘Take me to the other end.’
Vogel walked quickly towards the anonymous dark saloon car in which Borghi had come to fetch him. Borghi hesitated for a moment, then followed him.
A few minutes later, they were on the bridge that crossed the river and led into the next valley. The young officer parked the car on the side of the road and waited outside it while Vogel, some metres from him, repeated the same action as earlier, this time staring at a speed camera perched on a post beside the carriageway, while vehicles passed close to him and drivers sounded their horns in protest. But Vogel was unfazed and continued to do what he was doing. Whatever it was, Borghi found the situation both incomprehensible and paradoxical.
When he’d had enough, Vogel walked back to the car. ‘Let’s go and see the girl’s parents,’ he said and got in without waiting for Borghi’s reply. The young officer looked at his watch and patiently climbed in behind the wheel.
*
‘Anna Lou has never given me any trouble,’ Maria Kastner stated confidently. The girl’s mother was a tiny woman, but you nevertheless sensed an unusual strength in her. She was sitting on the sofa next to her husband, a solid but apparently inoffensive man, in the living room of the little two-storeyed house where they lived. Both were still in their pyjamas and dressing gowns, and they were holding hands.
There was a sickly-sweet smell in the air, a mixture of cooked food and air freshener. Vogel couldn’t stand it. He was sitting in an armchair, Borghi on another chair a bit further back. Between them and the Kastners was a low table with cups of coffee that would soon get cold since nobody seemed interested in drinking it.
Elsewhere in the room was a decorated Christmas tree, beneath which seven-year-old twin brothers were playing with presents they had just unwrapped.
One package was still untouched, with a nice red ribbon around it.
The woman saw where Vogel was looking. ‘We wanted the boys to celebrate the birth of Jesus anyway. It was also a way to distract them from the situation.’
The ‘situation’ was that their eldest child, who was sixteen and the only girl, had disappeared almost two days earlier. She had left home that winter afternoon at about five to go to a meeting in the local church, which was a few hundred metres from the house.
She had never arrived.
Anna Lou had taken a short walk in a residential area of identical houses – small houses with gardens – where everybody had always known everybody else.
But nobody had seen or heard anything.
The alarm had been raised at about seven, when her mother realised she hadn’t come home and had called her in vain on her mobile phone, which had been switched off. Two long hours in which anything might have happened to her. The search had gone on all evening, but then they had yielded to common sense and decided to resume it in the morning. In any case, the local police didn’t have the resources for a thorough search of the area.
As of now, there were no theories as to why she might have disappeared.
Vogel again observed the parents in silence. They were hollow-eyed from lack of sleep. In the weeks to come, this sleeplessness would cause them to age rapidly, but for now it had only just started to leave its mark on them.
‘Our daughter has always been a responsible girl, ever since she was little,’ the woman continued. ‘I don’t know how to put this … But we’ve never had to worry about her: she grew up without any prompting from us. She helps out around the house, she looks after her brothers. At school, her teachers are pleased with her. She recently became a catechist in our brotherhood.’
The living room was modestly furnished. On entering, Vogel had immediately noticed that the place was full of objects bearing witness to a deep religious faith. The walls were covered with sacred images and Biblical scenes. Jesus was everywhere, in the form of plastic or plaster statuettes, but the Virgin Mary, too, was well represented. And there was a vast array of saints. A wooden crucifix hung over the TV set.
Also in the room were framed family photographs. A girl with red hair and freckles appeared in many of them.
Anna Lou was a female version of her father.
And she was always smiling. On the day of her first communion. In the mountains with her brothers. With skates over her shoulder at the ice rink, proudly displaying a medal after a competition.