Hakan Nesser - The G File

It was now thirteen minutes past ten.

She rang shortly before eleven o’clock, and turned up half an hour later.

Quite a tall woman aged about thirty-five. Auburn, shoulder-length hair. A narrow face with high cheekbones and delicate features. Slim and shapely, with strikingly prominent breasts. She was wearing well-fitting black trousers and a wine-red blouse with very short sleeves. Neatly plucked eyebrows. He thought she was beautiful.

She glanced quickly around the room. Paused for a moment when she registered the Piranesi print before finally focusing on Verlangen’s melancholy physiognomy.

‘Do you mind if we speak English?’

Verlangen explained that he hadn’t forgotten the language during the thirty minutes that had passed since they spoke on the telephone. There was a trace of a smile on her face as she settled down on the visitor chair. She crossed her legs and cleared her throat. Verlangen offered her a cigarette, but she shook her head and instead produced a packet of Gauloises from her red handbag and lit one with an elegant little gold lighter.

‘So you are a private detective, are you?’

Verlangen nodded.

‘There are not so many of those about nowadays, I gather?’

‘There are a few.’

‘Only five here in Maardam.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I checked the telephone directory.’

‘I don’t suppose they’re all in there.’

‘Really? That’s where I found you anyhow.’

Verlangen shrugged. Noted that she had a small tattoo at the top of her left arm, just underneath the edge of her blouse sleeve. It looked like a swallow. Some kind of bird, at least.

He also noted that she was a little sunburnt. She must have been soaking up quite a lot of sun already, he thought, despite the fact that it’s only the beginning of June. Her skin had a pleasant tone reminiscent of café au lait: he wondered what it would be like stroking it with the tips of his fingers.

But then again, perhaps she was just one of those solarium chicks?

‘What would you like me to help you with?’ he asked.

‘I’d like you to keep an eye on somebody.’

‘Keep an eye on somebody?’

‘Or whatever you call it. I take it that’s one of the things you do?’

‘Of course. And who is it you’d like me to keep an eye on?’

‘My husband.’

‘Your husband?’

‘Yes. I want you to keep an eye on him for me, for a few days.’

‘I see.’

He turned to a new page in his notebook and clicked his ballpoint pen a couple of times.

‘So what’s your name, if I might ask?’

She had declined to give her name over the telephone, and hadn’t introduced herself when she came to his office. She seemed to hesitate for a moment now as well, as she took a drag of her cigarette.

‘Barbara Hennan.’

Verlangen noted it down.

‘I’m American. My maiden name is Delgado. I’m married to Jaan G. Hennan.’

He had written as far as the middle initial before pausing.

Jaan G. ? he thought. Good Lord! Jaan G. Hennan .

‘We’ve only been living in this country for a couple of months — although my husband comes from Maardam originally. We’re renting a house out at Linden. . Thirty kilometres from here — I take it you know where it is?’

‘Yes, of course.’

Could there be several people called Jaan G. Hennan? Maybe. But what were the odds against this being one of the others? And how?. .

‘How much do you charge?’

‘That depends.’

‘Depends on what?’

‘The kind of work involved. The time it takes. The costs incurred. .’

‘I want you to keep an eye on my husband for a few days. From morning till night. You won’t have time to undertake any other work.’

‘Why do you want him kept under observation?’

‘I’m not going to go into that. All I want is for you to check what he gets up to, and then report back to me. Okay?’

She raised an eyebrow and looked even more beautiful.

Classic, he thought. I’ll be damned if this isn’t a classic case. It wasn’t often that he felt like Philip Marlowe — not while he was sober, at least. Perhaps he ought to suck away at this sweetie for as long as it lasted. .

‘It’s not exactly an unusual commission,’ he said. ‘But I do have a number of questions.’

‘Let’s hear them.’

‘Distance and discretion, for instance.’

‘Distance and what. .?’

‘How much detail do you want? If he goes to a restaurant, for instance, do you want to know what he eats, who he talks to, what they say. .?’

She interrupted him by raising her left hand a few centimetres over the table. The swallow wiggled rather sensually.

‘I understand what you’re saying. It will be sufficient if you tell me what happens in broad outline. If I think any particular circumstances seem to be especially interesting, perhaps I can let you know?’

‘Of course. You are the one who makes the rules. And I assume he is not to know that I’m keeping an eye on him?’

She hesitated again.

‘Preferably not.’

‘Might I ask what your husband does for a living?’

‘Business. He runs an import company. Only just started, of course. . But he did something similar in Denver.’

‘Importing what?’

She shrugged.

‘All kinds of things. Computer components, for instance. What does it matter what my husband does for a living? All I want is for you to keep an eye on what he’s up to.’

Verlangen clasped his hands on the table in front of him, and paused briefly.

‘Fru Hennan,’ he said in a tone of voice that he hoped would be interpreted as incorporating masculine firmness, ‘might I draw your attention to the fact that I haven’t yet accepted your commission. You want me to keep your husband under observation, and if I agree to do that I must know exactly what I’m letting myself in for. I’m not in the habit of jumping into whatever comes along with my eyes closed — you wouldn’t last long in my profession if you did that.’

She frowned. He could see that the possibility of him turning her down had never occurred to her.

‘I understand,’ she said. ‘Forgive me. But I assume you are used to acting with a certain degree of. . discretion?’

‘Of course. Within reasonable limits. But without a knowledge of certain facts I simply can’t do what you want me to do in a satisfactory way. I have to know a little about your husband’s habits. What he does in a normal working day. The places he goes to, the people he meets. And so on. Most of all, of course, I would like to know what is behind all this — why you want to have him kept under observation: but I suppose I could do without that information.’

She made a vague movement of her head from right to left, and looked again at the Piranesi print for a few seconds.

‘Okay, obviously I respect your professional code of practice. As far as his routines are concerned, they are not exactly complicated. As I said, we live in that house out at Linden. He has his office in the centre of Maardam, and he spends six or seven hours there every day. We sometimes have lunch together, if I happen to be in town for some reason or other. I usually prepare the evening meal for seven o’clock, but occasionally he has dinner with business contacts. . We don’t have many social contacts — we’ve only been living here for a couple of months, after all. Anyway, that’s about it in broad outline. Weekends are obviously rather different — we’re usually together all the time, and so I won’t need your services then.’

Verlangen had been making copious notes as she spoke, but now he scratched the back of his neck as he looked up.

‘What social contacts do you have, in fact?’