The Return

by Håkan Nesser

“You arrive at The Big Shadow, and there she is. All on her own. Verhaven is in Maardam and isn’t expected home for several hours. She’s there for the taking. All you need to do is to go up to her, whisper a few fancy words, pull off her panties and get cracking. Why didn’t she want to, Mr. Jahrens? Tell me that. Why weren’t you allowed in between Beatrice Holden’s legs—she was generally so keen? Hadn’t she already half-promised you a reward that night when you took her in? Or was it just that you’d misunderstood it?”

  Jahrens coughed.

  “What an imagination,” he said and emptied his glass. “You’re the one who’s perverted, Chief Inspector, not me.”

  “It was scandalous, wasn’t it? Isn’t that how it felt?”

  “What was?”

  “That you weren’t allowed to screw Beatrice Holden. That the wretched Leopold Verhaven could have her, but not you. That stupid lump of shit that you’d looked down on ever since you’d been at school together. Leopold Verhaven! The cheat! The egg seller in The Big Shadow! A pathetic creature you’ve despised all your life…And here he is, living with this desirable woman, while you, you’ve married a highly desirable farm, one of the richest in the whole of Kaustin, but at what price! The price is your worn-out wife who’ll never let you have her, and now you’re here, this particular Saturday afternoon, and Beatrice Holden won’t let you have her either. Maybe she laughs at you—yes, damn it all, I think she laughs at you, and says she’ll tell Verhaven when he comes home what a useless old goat you are.”

  He paused briefly. Jahrens stubbed out his cigarette and gazed out to sea again.

  “Would you mind telling me if there are any details in my reconstruction that are not correct?” said Van Veeteren, leaning back in his chair.

  Jahrens said nothing. Sat there without moving, but showed no sign of nervous tension or irritation.

  “So I was right from start to finish? I thought as much,” said Van Veeteren with a satisfied smile. “Maybe you’d like to continue yourself, nevertheless? How you raped her and strangled her. Or was it the other way round?”

  “I shall be informing your superiors about this conversation,” said Jahrens after a few seconds. “First thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Excellent,” said Van Veeteren. “A drop more whiskey?”

  Without a word, Jahrens picked up the bottle and refilled his glass. Van Veeteren raised his glass as if to toast him, but his host wasn’t even looking at him. They drank in silence.

  “Number two,” said Van Veeteren. “Marlene Nietsch.”

  Jahrens raised his hand.

  “No, thank you,” he said. “You’ve gone far enough. You can go to hell with your damned fantasies. I’ve better things to do than to…”

  “That would never occur to me,” Van Veeteren cut him short. “I’m staying where I am.”

  Jahrens snorted and for the first time looked to be of two minds. About time, Van Veeteren thought.

  “All right. Either you give me your word that you’ll be out of here in half an hour at the most, or I’ll call the police right now.”

  “I am the police,” said Van Veeteren. “Wouldn’t it be better if you tried to contact a lawyer? A good lawyer? You still wouldn’t have a chance, but it generally feels better if you’ve done everything in your power, believe you me.”

  Jahrens lit another cigarette, but made no move to head for the telephone. Van Veeteren stood up and looked out to sea. The sun had sunk below the horizon some considerable time ago, and blue twilight hovered over the town. He stood there for about a minute with his hands on the low railing, waiting for Jahrens to make a move. But he didn’t.

  Just sat there in the basket chair. Took a sip of whiskey now and again, apparently unconcerned by the presence of Van Veeteren.

  Perhaps he had never been worried? Not even for one moment?

  Better press on, thought Van Veeteren, sitting down opposite him once more.

  He poured out the last drops from the whiskey bottle and held it out over the table.

  “It doesn’t go very far,” he said, and Jahrens gave a laugh.

  It was dark now. The little lamp in the corner of the balcony was not strong enough to reach very far either. For the last half hour Arnold Jahrens had been little more than a motionless outline. A dark silhouette, with his face in shadow, making it impossible for Van Veeteren to see what effect his words and all his efforts were having. Assuming they had any at all.

  “So you’re not going to tell me where you interred his head? That’s a little shameful, don’t you think? I fear you will not end up very high in Dante’s inferno, I suppose you’re aware of that?”

  He was expressing himself rather more formally; hard to say why, perhaps it was to do with the alcohol and the darkness.

  Jahrens said nothing.

  “How do you think your daughter is going to react?”

  “What to? To your laughable insinuations?”

  “Laughable? Do you really think she’ll laugh?”

  Jahrens burst out laughing again, as if he wanted to be the one who judged what was an appropriate reaction.

  “Your wife was able to refrain from laughter, in any case.”

  Jahrens snorted instead. There was a distinct trace of tipsiness in it, Van Veeteren thought, and he decided to pin his faith on that judgment and that circumstance. Now’s the moment, he thought. Make or break. He was beginning to feel less than clear in the head himself, in fact; they had certainly drunk a great deal, and there was a limit to the time available.

  “Would you like to check on that?” he asked.

  “On what?”

  “How your daughter reacts to all this?”

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  Van Veeteren pulled the little pin out of his lapel and held it up between his thumb and index finger.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  Jahrens shook his head.

  “A transmitter. Just as you guessed at the start.”

  “So what, damn it?” said Jahrens, interrupting him. “You know very well that I haven’t confirmed the tiniest detail of all this crap you’ve been coming out with.”

  “That’s what you think,” said Van Veeteren. “Perhaps you’ll change your mind when you hear the tape. That’s what usually happens.”

  “Crap,” said Jahrens, fumbling for another cigarette. “What’s this got to do with my daughter? Are you going to play it for her, or what the hell do you mean?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Van Veeteren, carefully replacing the pin in his lapel.

  “Won’t be necessary? And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “She’s already heard it all.”

  Jahrens dropped his cigarette and gaped. Van Veeteren stood up.

  “These two rooms,” he said, pointing with both hands. “Number 52 and number 54…”

  Jahrens took hold of the chair arms and started to rise to his feet.

  “What the devil…?”

  “Three police officers are sitting in room 52 with a tape recorder. They have noted every single word of our conversation. Haven’t missed a detail, I can assure you. In the other room…”

  He pointed.

  “…in the other room are your daughter, Andrea, and her husband.”

  “What the hell…?”

  Van Veeteren went over to the railing and pointed again.

  “If you come here you can catch a glimpse of them, if you lean out a little bit….”

  Arnold Jahrens needed no second invitation, and it was soon all over. Even so, Van Veeteren knew that those brief seconds would haunt him through all the dark nights of the rest of his life.

  Perhaps even longer.

  When he came out to the car, he could feel that he was much more drunk than he had thought, and there was obviously no question of him sitting behind the wheel. He took off the false beard and wig, put them in a plastic carrier bag and pushed it under the driver’s seat for the time being. Then he nestled down under the blanket o
n the backseat and wished himself a good and dreamless night.

  Five minutes later he was sleeping like a log, and by the time the ambulance and the police cars started arriving, he was beyond reach of the sirens and the raised voices.

  Nobody paid any attention to the slightly battered Opel, somewhat carelessly parked in the darkness two blocks north of Florian’s Guesthouse. Why should they?

  43

  “Have you seen this?” asked Jung, handing over the newspaper. “Wasn’t it you who interviewed him?”

  Rooth looked at the photograph.

  “Yes, it was. What the hell’s happened to him?”

  “Fell from the fifth floor. Or maybe jumped. Accident or suicide, that’s the question. What was he like?”

  Rooth shrugged.

  “Much like everybody else. Quite pleasant, I seem to recall. Served up coffee, in any case.”

  Reinhart sat down opposite Münster in the canteen.

  “Good morning,” he said. “How are you?”

  “Now what are you after?” said Münster.

  Reinhart tipped the contents of his pipe into the ashtray and started filling it.

  “Can I ask you a simple question?” he said.

  Münster put the Neuwe Blatt to the side.

  “You can always try.”

  “Hmm,” said Reinhart, leaning forward over the table. “I don’t suppose you happened to be in Behrensee the evening before last?”

  “Certainly not,” said Münster.

  “What about the chief inspector?”

  “I can’t imagine he would have been. He’s still on sick leave.”

  “Ah yes, so he is,” said Reinhart. “I just thought I’d ask. An idea had occurred to me.”

  “Really?” said Münster.

  He went back to his newspaper, and Reinhart lit his pipe.

  Hiller knocked and came straight in. DeBries and Rooth looked up from the reports they were writing.

  “That was a nasty accident out at Behrensee,” said the chief of police, rubbing his chin. “Is it something we ought to look into?”

  “Surely not,” said deBries. “The local boys can look after it.”

  “OK. I just thought I’d ask. You can go back to whatever it was you were doing.”

  And the same to you, deBries thought, exchanging glances with Rooth.

  “You know that we’ve had two phone calls, I suppose?” said Rooth when the chief of police had closed the door.

  “No,” said deBries. “What kind of phone calls?”

  “Anonymous. From Kaustin. They don’t seem to be from the same person, either. One was a man, the other a woman, according to Krause.”

  DeBries looked up and bit his pen.

  “What do they say?”

  “The same thing, more or less. That this Jahrens had something to do with the murders. The Verhaven murders. They’ve always suspected it, but didn’t want to say anything, it seems. That’s what they say, at least.”

  DeBries thought for a while.

  “Well. I’ll be damned,” he said. “So he’s got his punishment after all, has he?”

  “Could be,” said Rooth. “Mind you, they are probably just a couple of Nosey Parkers who want to make themselves noticed. In any case, it’s not something we need to worry about.”

  Nobody spoke for several seconds. Then deBries shrugged.

  “No, the case has been dropped, if I understand matters rightly. I think so. We’ve got plenty of stuff to keep our noses to the grindstone.”

  “More than enough,” said Rooth.

  “May I join you?” asked Mahler, sitting down on the empty chair. “Why are you sitting here, by the way?”

  “I sit wherever I like,” said Van Veeteren. “I’m on sick leave, and the weather’s not bad. I like watching people trudging away on the treadmill. Besides, I have a book to read.”

  Mahler nodded in sympathy.

  “It wouldn’t be so good for you in the sun, perhaps.”

  He looked out over the square and summoned one of the waitresses.

  “Two dark beers,” he said.

  “Thanks,” said Van Veeteren.

  They waited until the beer was served, toasted each other, then leaned back in their chairs.

  “Well, how did it go?” asked Mahler.

  “How did what go?”

  “Don’t play games with me,” said Mahler. “I’ve just bought you a damn beer, and given you my poems.”

  Van Veeteren took another drink.

  “That’s true,” he said. “Anyway, it’s all over now.”

  “So he succumbed to your pressure in the end?”

  The chief inspector pondered on that for a while.

  “Precisely,” he said. “You couldn’t put it more poetically than that.”

  XIII

  June 19, 1994

  44

  In the churchyard at Kaustin there were lime trees and elms, and a few horse chestnut trees, whose extensive root systems had many a time caused the verger, Maertens, to swear out loud when he encountered them with his spade. On this summer Sunday, however, he had every reason to think otherwise—as did the rest of the group standing around the newly opened family grave. They were grateful for the dense network of branches that provided shade and a degree of coolness during the simple burial ceremony.

  If they had been forced to stand in the scorching sun, you could bet your life that some of them would have fainted.

  There were only six of them, to be precise. And three of those were part of the team, you might say: Maertens himself, Wolff, the choirmaster and organist, and Pastor Kretsche, who conducted the service. The rest were Mrs. Hoegstraa, the deceased’s ancient sister who evidently didn’t have many years left herself, and two of the Maardam police force. They had been here sniffing around a month or so ago, but needless to say, they hadn’t achieved anything.

  But that’s the way it goes. Leopold Verhaven had been buried. Well, most of him; needless to say, they hadn’t succeeded in finding the missing body parts. They would have to slot them in later, if they ever turned up. Sometimes you had to ask yourself what on earth the police did with their time. And what they were being paid for.

  But that’s the way it goes. He had no desire to ask them about it. He was just waiting for Kretsche to finish so that he could fill in the grave and go home to watch the international soccer match on the box.

  The vicar was going on about inscrutability. The all-consuming love and mercy of our Lord God. Forgiveness.

  Well, what the hell could he say? Maertens sighed and leaned discreetly against the trunk of an elm tree. Closed his eyes and felt a faint breeze creeping in over the churchyard, barely discernible, and not really providing any cooling effect at all. In his mind’s eye he could see a large, misty beer glass in his own hand, in front of the television screen.

  Ah well, would but that we were there, he thought, and wondered where on earth that expression came from. Something biblical, presumably; given the way he earned his daily bread, it was inevitable that he would pick up the odd phrase here and there.

  He opened his eyes and looked at the group. Mrs. Hoegstraa was wearing a veil; she looked dogged, and hadn’t shed a single tear. Kretsche was going on and on as usual. Wolff was half asleep. The elder of the two police officers was sweating profusely and occasionally wiped his face with a bright-colored handkerchief. The younger one seemed to be brooding over something or other, goodness only knows what.

  Were they actually getting paid for standing here?! That wouldn’t surprise him in the least.

  “…on the Day of Judgment, Amen!” said the vicar, and it was all over.

  Rest in peace, Leopold Verhaven, Maertens thought, and looked around for his spade.

  “I’ve been thinking about a few things,” said Münster as they came to the parking lot.

  “Let’s hear about them,” said Van Veeteren.

  “Well,” said Münster, “in the first place, how did you come to think that he was t
he guilty party? Jahrens, that is.”

  “Hmm,” said Van Veeteren. “The wheelchair ramp at the Czermaks’ house, of course. And that woman at the prison with the walking stick. Maybe I didn’t catch on right away, but there was a link, in any case. A little bell ringing somewhere in the background…”

  “But Mrs. Jahrens was an invalid. She couldn’t walk, not even with walking sticks.”

  Van Veeteren fanned himself with a newspaper.

  “Not everything is as it seems, Münster. I thought we’d agreed on that?”

  “And what might that mean?” asked Münster.

  “Oh, various things,” said the chief inspector, gazing out over the churchyard. “That the root, or source, of evil isn’t always where we expect to find it, for instance. Leopold Verhaven’s fate—and I really do hope we shall be able to restore his reputation one of these days—has hardly anything to do with him. Like it or not, he becomes the unwilling main character in a silent and bitter and pointless drama fought between Mr. and Mrs. Jahrens. He’s totally innocent, but he is cast as the scapegoat and gets to spend a quarter of a century in jail. No wonder he becomes a bit odd! When Mrs. Jahrens eventually decides to go to confession, all it leads to is the death of Verhaven. That is the biggest barrow-load of garbage you can ever imagine, Münster; but there again, maybe there is some kind of inverted logic behind it all. You can almost hear them roaring with laughter down there in the underworld, if you get my meaning.”

  He looked up at the bright, cloud-spattered summer sky.

  “Even on a day like this,” he added.

  They stood in silence for a while.

  “And Marlene Nietsch?” Münster asked.

  “A coincidence, I reckon,” said Van Veeteren. “He’d probably come across her in the village and recognized her, and that morning he just happened to be driving past Zwille when Verhaven left her. He most likely saw an opportunity and picked her up, no more than that, and we know what happened next. She didn’t want to, and so he turned violent. That’s what I think happened, but there are lots of other possibilities, of course.”

  “And the missing bits? Of Verhaven, I mean.”