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‘But now this, and van der Wal, and then…’ Geeske hesitates. ‘If we’re unlucky, it’ll soon no longer be about this man, but just about all the other stuff, you know.’
‘Exactly, he needs to get home as quickly as possible.’
‘Maybe we’re not quite of the same opinion after all, Lothar,’ says Geeske. ‘To Germany, okay, I’d like that, but home … I don’t know. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that it wasn’t an accident after all.’
Lothar doesn’t answer.
‘Lothar?’
‘You mean that Klaus was killed by one of his friends? That’s hardly conceivable … No, that’s impossible.’
‘I’ve never seen anything impossible.’
‘Shall I ask the Dutchman to come round to your place? And ask around a bit?’
‘The Dutchman?’
‘Dear Cupido from our criminal investigation department, we call him the Dutchman.’
‘Is he one?’
‘No,’ replies Lothar. ‘But he’s on Texel at the moment and is travelling back to Cuxhaven today. I can ask him to make a diversion via Delfzijl.
‘And then?’
‘Just let him get his bearings, ask a few questions. Then we can decide better what to do,’ explains Lothar. ‘If there’s anything wrong with it.’
from: Der Holländer
(own translation)
no English version available!
The Deep Silence of the North Sea
Liewe Cupido knows his homeland which is partly Germany, partly the Netherlands. He works now for the Bundespolizei See in Germany, a special unit responsible for the the North Sea coast and the related coastal waters comprising mainly the Friesian Islands. His unit is busy with smuggling, human trafficking … as well as any events on board of ships, boats, vessels … if used for merchant shipping or fishing or … It’s a wide range of control activities – and there are also many events related to accidents or crimes.
Liewe knows the area and the people living there. Of course there are also many tourists, but the tourists are not in the main focus of his police unit. The events, especially under investigation by him, are often fatal casualties – and it’s up to him and his collegues to decide if it’s a disastrous accident cause by wild weather or manslaughter or even murder.
The area is unique by its landscape as well as his residents. Although only partly in Germany, where Liewe is responsible, the area covers also a part of the Netherlands. There are official information channels and protocols for co-operation, however, there are also informal channels when people from both sides of the border working in comparable units and knowing each other since years meet every now and then, here and there. The staff level is always interested to solve open cases as soon as possible especially when the cases are relevant on both sides of the border.
During his investigations Liewe often meets resident people who know a lot about certain events, also a lot about the past and any bygone incidents related to a recent case, but they are true North Sea people, silent, reluctant, living for themselves, not chatty … They often think that not speaking about past and current incidents i. e. crimes is far better than – maybe – ruining the peace of their small community around them, communities where their parents and grandparents lived and – so they hope – also their children will thrive. It’s this typical feature of the North Sea coast people – they are generally famous for.
This atmosphere doesn’t help when investigating, but Liewe knows how to overcome them, if victims, if witnesses, if innocent bystander who simply watch and gossip. Rather soon it appears that recent events are crimes, although well hidden, and that there are events in the past which might have caused the actual mess. Liewe is patient and able to put together any bits of information – and at the end there is a full picture of past and present and a solved crime.
The cases deal with maniac sportsmen underestimating the wild North Sea as well as obsessed divers trying to snatch valuable goods out of sunken ships or drowned corpses asking for justice. Each case broadens because of events in the past, ideas of revenge for whatever, involvements of families and friends. It’s always fascinating to walk with Liewe when he investigates – slowly.
Liewe is driven by his own ghosts. When he was a teenager his father, a well-known fisherman on Texel, died when working in sea. He drowned. Maybe he was pushed into the water. Liewe tries to sort out the details of his father’s death, but there is more hush than information forthcoming. Also it’s about almost thirty years ago … Deep in his head he thinks that maybe he could have averted the accident or whatever when he had accompanied his father during this tour – but he hadn’t and his father had hired a young, rather unexperienced man …
So now Liewe gets close to a woman, slowly, lives with his dog who picked him trying to get a new home instead of living on the streets … and he thinks about his past, his father and his death … waiting for new exciting murder cases at the North Sea coast.