So he went into the living room and from the drawer of a cabinet took the albums of family photographs that Maria had collected lovingly over the years. He carried them into the dining room and sat down at the table but didn’t switch the light on. All he needed was the light from the street lamp outside filtering in through the window. He started to take the photographs out of their pockets and place them on the table, one by one, according to an order that only he knew, like a fortune teller trying to predict the future from the cards in front of him.
The photographs showed his girl from when she was very little.
Anna Lou started to grow in front of his eyes. The day she crawled, the day she learned to walk, the day he taught her to ride a bicycle. There was a series of firsts: her first day at school, her first birthday, her first Christmas. And then so many other moments, scattered through time. Other Christmases, trips to the mountains, ice skating competitions. An array of happy memories. Because – it seemed foolish even to think this – people don’t take photographs of bad days. And if they do, they certainly don’t keep them.
There were the images of the last holiday they had taken together, the year before, when they had gone to the seaside. Anna Lou looked funny and a little awkward in her bathing costume, and she knew it. Maybe that was why she always stood somewhat apart in those snaps. Unlike so many of her contemporaries, she had not yet fully blossomed. She was like a child, with her red ponytail and her freckles. Bruno Kastner would have liked Maria to talk to her, to explain to her that she was normal and that one day, all of a sudden, her body would change, and for the better. But for his wife, religious as she was, subjects like sex and puberty were taboo. And he certainly couldn’t do it. It would be his turn to talk to the twins one day. But that kind of conversation wasn’t something a father could have with his only daughter. It would have embarrassed her. She would have blushed and, aware that her cheeks were on fire and there was nothing she could do about it, would have felt even more exposed and vulnerable.
His daughter was like him, shy and a little self-conscious when it came to interacting with the rest of the world. And that included her family.
Bruno wished he had given her more. For example, he wished he could have spent part of the money from the sale of land to the mining company on sending her to a better school, outside the valley, maybe a nice private school. But the land was his wife’s, and consequently so was the money. And Maria, as always, had decided for all of them. He hadn’t been opposed to the idea of making a big donation to the brotherhood, but he would have liked their children to have their share now and not in some hypothetical future.
Because Bruno Kastner didn’t even know if Anna Lou would have a future.
Irritably, he dismissed that thought. He felt like punching the table. He was strong enough to break it in two. But he held back. He’d been holding back his whole life.
He rubbed his eyes and when he opened them again he lingered over one photograph in particular. It was quite a recent snap, and showed his daughter, smiling as usual, with another girl. The contrast between the two girls underlined all too plainly the fact that Anna Lou, with her tracksuit and her trainers and her red hair gathered in the usual ponytail, looked like a child. Her friend, on the other hand, was made-up, fashionably dressed, and looked every inch a grown woman. Studying the two of them, Bruno Kastner would have liked to cry, but he couldn’t.
What had happened was his fault, and his alone.
He was a believer, although his faith wasn’t quite as firm as Maria’s, and that made his guilt all the keener. If he’d been strong enough to impose his views over his wife’s, Anna Lou would be safe in her room in a boarding school somewhere right now. If he’d had the courage to tell Maria what he really thought, to express his own opinions, his daughter wouldn’t have disappeared.
Instead, he had kept silent. Because that’s what sinners do: they keep silent and, in keeping silent, they lie.
That was Bruno Kastner’s verdict on himself. He put almost all the photographs back in place, closed the albums and prepared to face his third sleepless night.
There was only one photograph on the table now. The one of Anna Lou with her friend.
He put it in his pocket.
26 December
Three days after the disappearance
The weather had changed. The temperature had dipped and the bright Christmas sun had been replaced by a thick blanket of grey clouds.
Avechot was still slumbering lazily after the excesses of the festive season. Vogel and Borghi, though, had woken early to take full advantage of the day. They drove around the streets of the village in the dark saloon car. Vogel seemed in good spirits and was dressed as if on his way to an official meeting. Highly polished shoes, Prince of Wales suit, white shirt, pink woollen tie. Borghi was wearing the same clothes as the day before and hadn’t had a chance to iron the shirt he had washed in the hotel. He felt awkward next to his superior. While he concentrated on driving, Vogel looked around.
The walls of the houses bore religious slogans in white paint. I’M WITH JESUS! CHRIST IS LIFE. HE WHO WALKS WITH ME WILL BE SAVED. From the look of them, it was clear they weren’t the work of some anonymous fanatic. The owners of the houses had put them there themselves, as an overt testimony to their faith. In addition, there were crosses everywhere: on the facades of the public buildings, in the middle of flower beds, even on the shop windows.
It was as if the village had been swept by a wave of religious fanaticism.
‘Tell me about the brotherhood the Kastners belong to.’
Vogel’s request didn’t catch Borghi unprepared: he had done some research into the subject. ‘Apparently, there was a scandal in Avechot about twenty years ago: the local priest ran away with one of his female parishioners, a devout wife and mother of three.’
‘I’m not interested in gossip,’ Vogel said acidly.
‘Well, sir, that’s when everything started. Anywhere else, a thing like that would have given rise to – yes, gossip and idle chatter, but in Avechot they took it very seriously. The priest was young and charismatic, it seems. He’d won everyone over with his sermons and was much loved.’
In a narrow community, hemmed in by the mountains, it would certainly take charisma to win people’s hearts … or to take advantage of their credulity, Vogel thought.
‘The fact remains, he was able to build a large following. The community has always been quite observant, which is why, after what happened, they must have felt somehow betrayed by their spiritual guide. At that point, the local people became more suspicious than ever, and the congregation started rejecting all the replacements sent by the Curia. So, after a couple of years, some members took on the role of deacons, and since then the community has been self-governing.’
‘Like a religious sect?’ Vogel asked, his curiosity suddenly aroused.
‘Sort of. They used to live on tourism in these parts, but strangers have never been really welcome. They disturbed things, they had customs that didn’t match – let’s put it this way – the “local culture”. When the fluorite deposit was discovered, these people were finally able to get rid of them and almost completely cut themselves off from the rest of the world.’
‘Maria and Bruno Kastner must have been among the most fervent of them, seeing how much money they’ve given to the cause.’