Hakan Nesser - The G File

What am I doing? he thought in horror. I’m sitting here, hoping that an accident can be transformed into a murder. Purely in order to satisfy my own private instincts for vengeance. Talk about objective police work! Talk about motives!

He listened to the end of the Pergolesi CD, both Stabat mater and the Orpheus cantatas. It was a quarter to one when he crawled down into the double bed next to his wife. Quietly and carefully so as not to wake her up.

I don’t love her any more, he suddenly thought. I haven’t done so for ages now. Why do we continue to maintain this conventional spectacle?

For whose sake?

It was an idiotic question to ask himself just before falling asleep, and an hour later he was still awake.

When Maarten Verlangen opened up his office in the morning of Tuesday, 9 June, it was the first time he had set foot in there since Wednesday the previous week.

As a result, if nothing else, he had the last five editions of Neuwe Blatt to read. In accordance with an unwritten gentleman’s agreement, a neighbour — the widow fru Meredith — always posted her copy through his letter box after she had read it and cut out the evening’s television programmes. The gesture was a thank-you for what Verlangen had done eighteen months earlier to track down some pervert who had spent some time posting his own excrement through her letter box — a young and at times promising banking lawyer, it transpired, who had undergone a personality change after cycling headfirst into a tramcar on Keymer Plejn. After nailing him, Verlangen had felt a certain degree of sympathy with the poor, confused young man, and had visited him regularly during the six months he had spent in the Majorna mental hospital.

Despite everything, it seemed there were some people worse off than he was. .

He arranged the newspapers chronologically in a pile on his desk, lit a cigarette and listened to his telephone answering machine. Nothing from Barbara Hennan. Only three messages, in fact: one from the insurance company, one from somebody called Wallander who would ring him back, and a wrong number.

He dialled the number of Villa Zefyr.

No answer.

He read the Wednesday edition of Neuwe Blatt and tried again.

No answer.

Lit another cigarette and worked his way through the Thursday and Friday editions of the newspaper.

Third time lucky, he thought.

The hell it was. The ringing sounded as desolate as his own thoughts. He replaced the receiver, and wondered what to do next. Was there any point in continuing to keep an eye on Hennan?

Was he under any obligation to do so?

Hardly. He had been working on the case for three days (or at least been on hand in Linden for three days), his daily rate had been three hundred guilders and he had been given a thousand by fru Hennan. Bearing in mind his hotel bill and other odds and ends, one could say that the pay more or less covered his input.

Perhaps it would be as well to leave it at that. Forget about the elegant American woman and her shady husband, and devote his attentions to something else.

But on the other hand: another thousand for a few days of less than strenuous effort was not to be sniffed at. Especially as he had no other commitments at the moment. Apart from a so-called ‘pay by results’ job he had been toying with for several months: a gang of graffiti-producing vandals had been making a nuisance of themselves in Linden, and local shop-owners had clubbed together to offer a reward of 5,000 guilders to anybody who could apprehend them. But although Verlangen had one or two possible names and a few possible faces in mind, there was a long way to go before he could collect the reward.

He sighed. Opened the day’s first beer and decided on one final compromise in the Hennan question: first he would glance through the Saturday and Sunday editions of Neuwe Blatt , and then make another call to Villa Zefyr.

The article was on page five of the Saturday edition.

Woman found dead was the headline, and he read the short text with roughly the same feelings he used to have at the Gerckwinckel pub when he realized that the sweaty, red and swollen face in the mirror over the toilet was his own.

Was it possible? he wondered.

Who else could it be, for Christ’s sake?

A woman aged about 35, it said.

Of American origin.

Found dead at the bottom of an empty swimming pool.

On the outskirts of Linden. Unclear circumstances, but as far as one could tell she had thought the pool was full and dived in from a considerable height.

No witnesses of the accident. No suspicions of foul play.

Verlangen read the article — no more than sixteen lines in a single column — three times while drinking the beer and smoking another cigarette.

American woman?

How many American women could there be in Linden? Not many, he thought.

And he remembered that diving tower. What an incredibly pointless way to die.

Hell’s bells, he thought. What the devil is the significance of this?

Thursday night? Dammit all, that was the night he had sat and. .

For a few seconds Maarten Verlangen could feel his mind changing into that famous tablet of soap in the bathroom that it was impossible to grasp hold of, and that not even a louse could cling to. After another deep draught of beer, however, he managed to restore a modicum of order into his thoughts, and two possible courses of action crystallized out.

Or at least, two first moves in two possible courses of action.

Either he could phone the police — that would of course be the most sensible thing to do.

Or he could drive out to Linden one more time and see what he could find out there.

After five seconds of simulated thinking, he chose the second alternative. He could ring the police at a later stage, and it would be stupid to get involved before he had established that it really was the right woman. That it was in fact Barbara Clarissa Hennan who had been found lying dead in the swimming pool.

No sooner said than done. He left his office and half-ran to his car.

‘Really?’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Is it that bad?’

He listened intently to what was emerging from the telephone receiver with the expression on his face becoming ever more gloomy. Like a trough of low pressure, thought Inspector Münster, who was sitting opposite his superior and running the tip of his tongue over a back tooth from which he had lost part of a filling the previous evening. An English toffee — it wasn’t the first time.

‘I see,’ muttered Van Veeteren. ‘Ah well, I suppose it was only to be expected. . Good God no, we’re not going to drop the matter as quickly as that. I’ll be in touch again shortly.’

He listened for a short while longer, then said goodbye and hung up. Leaned back on his chair and glared at Münster.

‘Sachs,’ he said. ‘They’ve spoken to people at that restaurant now.’

‘And?’ said Münster.

‘Unfortunately it seems he was in fact hanging around there all the time, our friend G.’

‘Oh dear. But maybe he-’

‘The whole evening.’

‘Are they certain of that?’

The temperature in the area of low pressure fell by several more degrees.

‘Apparently. Damn and blast!’

Münster shrugged.

‘So that’s that, then. I suppose we can-’

‘But who knows? He arrived at about half past seven — he’d rung in advance and booked a table. As if he were determined to set himself up with an alibi, the swine.’

Van Veeteren stared hard at Münster.

‘And then what?’ wondered Münster, as was presumably the intention.

‘Then? Well, he had dinner, drank a fair bit with it, then moved over to the bar, they reckon. He evidently took a taxi at about a quarter to one: they’re trying to track down the driver. Damn and blast, as I said.’