Hakan Nesser - The G File

Fru Nolan answered the door after half a minute. She was wearing black jeans, an equally black tunic, and looked at him in a way that suggested she wasn’t quite with it.

‘Yes?’

‘Forgive me for disturbing you. My name is Van Veeteren. I come from Maardam, and I’ve known your husband for a very long time. Could you perhaps let me have a little bit of your time for a chat?’

She looked him up and down. Ran a hand through her dark hair, which was surprisingly thick in view of the fact that she must be turned fifty, he thought.

‘You know what’s happened, do you?’

‘Yes. You have my sympathy.’

She nodded and allowed him in. He guessed that she had been given some kind of tranquillizer by the hospital: the way she moved and spoke — in a sort of numb, mechanical way — suggested as much.

‘After you.’

She ushered him into the living room, and he sat down in a wine-red armchair with yellow antimacassars on the arms.

‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Van Veeteren.’

She flopped down opposite him on a sofa. Carefully crossed her legs and gritted her teeth so that her mouth became a narrow streak.

‘What is it you want? I don’t have. .’

She didn’t finish the sentence. Van Veeteren felt another surge of doubt, but resisted it and allowed it to drift away.

‘Your husband. . I understand the police have told you who he really was.’

She made a vague movement of the head, and he was unsure if it was an acknowledgement or a denial.

‘The fact that his real name was Jaan G. Hennan, and that he had a past you didn’t know about.’

‘What exactly do you want?’ she asked. ‘Are you a police officer as well? I don’t think I-’

‘I used to be,’ interrupted Van Veeteren. ‘I had quite a bit to do with your husband in that capacity.’

She frowned.

‘I don’t really understand.’

‘You were interviewed by the police the other day, weren’t you? At the gallery.’

‘Yes, I was. But what. .?’

‘What conclusions did you draw from that?’

‘Conclusions? Why should I draw any conclusions?’

‘But it must have made you think.’

‘I suppose it did, yes. .’

He waited, but she didn’t elaborate. Instead she leaned back on the sofa and lit a cigarette.

Just how sedated is she? he wondered. He decided to try a somewhat heavier-handed approach.

‘You weren’t surprised, were you?’

‘By what?’

‘The fact that your husband committed suicide.’

‘What do you mean. .?’

‘Or that he had a criminal past?’

She drew on her cigarette, and the way she did so surprised him.

Or rather, the way she sat there, leaning back and observing him. As if his words had simply passed over her head. He repeated the question.

‘You knew that your man had another identity besides Christopher Nolan, didn’t you? Even before the police told you about it.’

She took a deep breath.

‘Of course not. Who are you? I must ask you to leave me in peace now.’

All three sentences in the same breath. Van Veeteren said nothing for a few seconds. She inhaled again, but made no move to stand up or show him out.

‘Didn’t your husband tell you that I’d been to see him?’

‘That you. .? Why should you go to see him?’

‘Because we had a few things to talk about.’ New pause. He let the seconds pass by.

‘I’m sorry, but what did you say your name was?’

‘Van Veeteren. Are you sure your husband never mentioned my name these past few days?’

She seemed to be thinking that over.

‘Certainly not. He didn’t talk about any new acquaintances at all.’

‘On the contrary, fru Nolan. I’m a very old acquaintance, I thought I had made that clear.’

She said nothing, but her mouth twitched several times.

‘And no doubt they told you at the hospital this morning it is perfectly clear that your husband was called something different fifteen years ago?’

No reaction.

‘That he took on the identity of Christopher Nolan in order to shake off his past. The fact that you still seem to doubt that doesn’t make a very good impression, fru Hennan.’

He said the name as carefully as. . as when one moves a harmless knight from a square on the chessboard where it has been standing for fifteen years, and she reacted too late.

Two seconds, that couldn’t be blamed on any medicine known to man.

But also a move whose consequences he hadn’t foreseen either. Dammit all, he thought.

‘Hennan? What did you say. .?’

He took out his cigarette machine. Put it on the table in front of him and began filling it with tobacco. Thoughts were buzzing around inside his head now, and he needed something to occupy his hands. Elizabeth Nolan sat there motionless, looking at him.

‘You lied to them, didn’t you?’

No reply.

‘You knew about his background, didn’t you?’

She smoked and gazed past him, out through the window. He lit his cigarette and tried quickly to think of what to say next. He realized suddenly that a crucial point was looming.

Crucial? he thought. Could it be. .?

‘I must ask you to leave me in peace now,’ she said again. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

He ignored her interruption. The noise from the neighbour’s lawnmower suddenly ceased, and the silence became as noticeable as a stranglehold.

‘You know exactly what happened to Maarten Verlangen as well, don’t you?’

The questions were tumbling out more or less automatically now. He realized that her resistance was broken. He could see that by looking at her. She dropped her shoulders and looked him in the eye. Several seconds passed, then she shook her head slowly and sighed deeply.

‘All right, Chief Inspector Van Veeteren. Blame yourself.’

She must have had the pistol tucked down between the cushions on the sofa, as he didn’t detect it until she was holding it in her hand, pointing it at him from only a metre away.

‘It was idiotic of you to come here,’ she said.

Something had moved inside Bausen, and at first he didn’t realize what it was. Then it dawned on him that it was Van Veeteren’s invitation to celebrate Christmas in Maardam.

Him and Mathilde. Together with Van Veeteren and Ulrike. Maybe others as well, he didn’t know. And he didn’t know why this should be so remarkable: but the somewhat sentimental feeling nagging away inside his skull was incontestable.

Or inside his chest, or wherever. My God, he thought: I’m nearly seventy-four, I should be too old for this sort of thing. But perhaps you get a bit more emotional as you get older.

In the afternoon he spent three-quarters of an hour doing yoga exercises, then he telephoned Mathilde and asked if she’d like to come round for a bite to eat that evening. They hadn’t seen each other for a week, and she accepted without further ado. He could hear that she sounded pleased.

He drove down to Fisktorget, bought a kilo of line-caught fish, some mussels and fresh vegetables. Then he drove out to Wassingen to fetch her. Folded up her wheelchair as usual and put it in the boot, and carried her out to the car.

It occurred to him that he hadn’t mentioned to Van Veeteren that she was wheelchair-bound, and wondered why not. Did the fact that he had kept it to himself signify something, and in that case, what?

Ah well, there were three-and-a-half months to go before Christmas. If the trip to Maardam actually did come off, there was plenty of time to sort that detail out on the telephone.

Together, they began preparing the fish. He had made various changes in the kitchen since they met, to make it easier for Mathilde to move around. They each drank a glass of Alsace wine while they were busy with the cooking, and while they were doing so it occurred to him that he was in love with her.