The Talented Mr. Varg (Detective Varg #2) - Alexander McCall Smith Page 0,1
never the same again. “It’s a big thing for a fish to be caught,” he said to Erik. “Even if you put him back, that fish is bound to feel insecure.”
Erik had simply dismissed his objection, although Ulf could tell that his remark had hit home. And that he immediately regretted, because it was only too easy to make somebody like Erik feel ill at ease. It was hard enough to be Erik, Ulf reflected, without having to fend off criticism from people like me. Ulf was a kind man, and even if Erik’s talk about fish was trying, he would take care not to show it. He would listen patiently, and might even learn something—although that, he thought, was rather unlikely.
As he drove the Saab along that quiet country road, Ulf was not thinking about conservation and the long-term prospects of humanity so much as of an awkward issue that had arisen as a result of one of his recent cases. The Department of Sensitive Crimes usually steered clear of day-to-day offences, leaving those to the uniformed officers of the local police. From time to time, though, a particular political or social connotation to an otherwise mundane incident meant that it was diverted to the department. This was the case with a minor assault committed by a Lutheran clergyman, who had bloodied the nose of his victim one Saturday morning in full view of at least fifteen witnesses. That was unusual enough, as Lutheran ministers do not figure prominently in the criminal statistics, but what singled this out for the attentions of the Department of Sensitive Crimes was not so much the identity of the perpetrator of the assault, but that of the victim. The nose that had been the target of the assault belonged to the leader of a group of Rom travellers.
“Tattare,” mused Erik, only to be sharply corrected by their colleague Anna, who rolled her eyes at the unfashionable, disparaging name. Anna, more than the others in the department, knew the contours of the permissible. “They are not Tartars, Erik,” she said. “They are Resande, a travelling minority.”
Ulf had defused the situation. “Erik is only referring to the insensitivity of others,” he said. “He’s drawing our attention to the sort of attitude that leads to incidents like this.”
“Unless he deserved it,” muttered Erik.
Ulf ignored this, looking instead at the photographs in the folder of the nose in question. These had been taken in the hospital emergency department, when the blood was still trickling out of the left nostril. In other respects, the nose appeared unexceptional, although Ulf noticed that the pores on either side of the curve of the nostril were slightly enlarged.
“There are odd little holes here,” he said, getting up from his desk to hand the file to Anna, whose desk, one of four in the room, was closest to his. “Look at this poor man’s skin.”
Anna examined the photograph. “Enlarged pores,” she said. “An oily complexion.”
Carl looked up from a report he was writing. “Can anything be done about that?” he asked. “Sometimes when I look in the mirror—I mean, look closely at my nose—I see little pinpricks. I’ve wondered about them.”
Anna nodded. “Same thing—and perfectly normal. You find them in places where the skin is naturally greasy. They act as a sort of drain.”
Carl seemed interested. His hand went up to touch the skin around his nose. “And can you do anything about them?”
Anna handed the file back to Ulf. “Wash your face,” she said. “Use a cleanser. And then, for special occasions, you can put an ice cube on them. It tightens the skin and will make your pores look smaller.”
“Oh,” said Carl. “Ice?”
“Yes,” said Anna. “But the most important thing is to keep the skin clean. You don’t wear make-up, I take it…”
Carl smiled. “Not yet.”
Anna pointed out that some men did. “You can wear anything these days. There’s that man in the café over the road—have you noticed him? He wears blusher—quite a lot of it. He’ll have to be careful—he could get blocked pores if he doesn’t remove the make-up