The Return ivv-3

by Håkan Nesser

  Is that how you trap folks nowadays?”

  “Not at all,” said Van Veeteren. “It wouldn’t hold up in court, anyway, but I’m sure you know that. No, I’m simply going to tell you how I see it. If you’re frightened of a tape recorder or something of the sort, you can nod or shake your head as you please. I think you need to run through it all, you as well.”

  “Rubbish,” said Jahrens, sipping his whiskey. “Sure as hell, you’ve made me curious. It’s not every day you get an opportunity to study a police officer with a screw loose at close quarters.”

  He smiled and shook a cigarette out of the pack on the table in front of him.

  “Would you like one?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Van Veeteren accepted both the cigarette and a light before he got under way.

  “Tell me about Leopold Verhaven!”

  Arnold Jahrens smiled again and drew on his cigarette.

  Looked up and gazed out to sea. A few seconds passed.

  “It’ll be fine weather tomorrow, don’t you think, Chief Inspector? Will you be staying here for some days?”

  “As you like,” said Van Veeteren, leaning forward over the table. “I’ll tell you what happened, and you can interrupt me if anything is unclear. . You have murdered three people. Beatrice Holden, Marlene Nietsch and Leopold Verhaven. Verhaven has been in jail for twenty-four years, thanks to you. You are a bastard; don’t be misled by my friendly tone.”

  Jahrens’s cheek muscle twitched several times, but he said nothing.

  “The only thing I’m not a hundred percent certain of is the motive. Although I’m pretty sure about that in outline even so. Correct me if I’m wrong, as I said. On April sixth, 1962, a Saturday, you go up to Verhaven’s house in the woods because you know Beatrice Holden is alone there. Presumably you’ve waited until the electrician finished what he was doing, and when you’ve seen him walking back home to the village, you set off. You are horny. Less than a week ago you’ve had Beatrice lying on your sofa, naked under a blanket, and that’s more than you can cope with. You’ve probably peeked at her under the blanket, maybe touched her as well, while she was sleeping off her intoxication and your semi-invalid wife is upstairs in the bedroom with no idea of what’s going on. Your two-year-old daughter as well. Maybe you put your hands between her legs. . between Beatrice Holden’s legs; that’s where you’re itching to be. A hot-blooded, sexy, good-looking woman-unlike your wife, lying upstairs as cold as ice, who never lets you in.”

  Arnold took a sip of his drink, but his expression didn’t change.

  “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 on the backseat and wished himself a good and dreamless night.

  Five minutes later he was sleeping like a log, and by the 3 0 9

  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 Munster in the canteen.

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

  “Now what are you after?” said Munster.

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

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

  Munster 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 Munster.

  “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 Munster.

  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 ha
d 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.