Hakan Nesser - The G File

In the autumn of his life he was unable to find any other word for it: but so what? Love was as good a word as any other, surely?

He told her as much as well, just as they sat down at the table, and she said that she had come across worse blokes than he was. One or two, at least. He laughed, walked round the table and kissed her.

They had just opened bottle number two when Ulrike Fremdli rang. It was a quarter to nine.

‘Bausen?’

‘Yes.’

They had spoken two or three times before, but never more than a few words.

This time it was rather more. In view of the reason for the call.

According to what she said, Van Veeteren still hadn’t turned up in Maardam. In fact. Despite his promise to be home around five o’clock. And he wasn’t answering his mobile. Something must have happened.

‘He did mention that there was something wrong with it,’ said Bausen.

‘His mobile?’

‘Yes.’

‘What time did he leave Kaalbringen?’

Bausen thought for a moment.

‘About half past twelve. Yes, he ought to have been back home ages ago.’

‘I don’t understand why he hasn’t been in touch.’

Nor did Bausen. But he could hear from Ulrike Fremdli’s voice that she was more worried than she was trying to seem, and he tried to calm her down by suggesting that there might be something wrong with the car.

He assured her that he would let her know the moment he heard anything — but no doubt it wasn’t anything serious.

He said nothing about Christmas — after all, it was only 8 September.

What the hell has happened? he thought when he had replaced the receiver. Has he driven off the road, and is lying helpless in a ditch somewhere?

No, no, he thought as he turned his attention back to Mathilde. We mustn’t make things worse than they are.

‘Very idiotic,’ she said again, and once more he noticed how there was an infinitely small twitching of the muscles at the side of her mouth. Butterfly-light stimuli like the puff of a breeze on the surface of a lake.

There was not much more that he noticed. Just a feeling that her judgement was absolutely correct — he really did feel like an idiot — and a certain increasing impression that had to do with his perceptions. Reminiscent of tunnel vision. His surroundings — the furniture, the garish walls covered in paintings, the picture window looking out on the garden and the municipal forest — all seemed to shrink away and dissolve into a vague blur. The only thing that seemed to him to be real, the only thing that was anywhere close to being in focus was the fact that he was sitting in this wine-red armchair opposite this woman dressed in black, pointing her gun steadily at him.

A Pinchmann, if he was not much mistaken, 7.6 millimetres. There was nothing to suggest that Maarten Verlangen had not also become acquainted with it. Nothing at all.

‘I understand,’ he said.

Which was an obvious lie. She raised an eyebrow and he could see that she also doubted if he understood.

‘Let me make one thing quite clear,’ she said. ‘I know how to use this pistol, and I won’t hesitate to use it. If you like I can shoot you in the leg right now, so that you don’t need to have any doubt on that score.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I believe you.’

One corner of her mouth twitched a little more strongly, but no smile came into being.

‘Good. You have lived most of your life, after all, and seem to be a sensible man. Until now, that is.’

He made no reply. She appeared to think for a while, then took out a cigarette and lit it using only one hand.

I must talk to her, Van Veeteren thought. Must. Silence is not my ally on this occasion.

‘Verlangen?’ he said.

‘What about him?’

‘That private detective. What happened to him?’

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and hesitated for a moment.

‘He saw us,’ she said.

‘In Maardam?’

‘Yes. Pure coincidence, but I suppose it had to happen sooner or later.’

‘When was that?’

‘In March. Somewhere around the middle of the month. We had gone there to look at some pictures left by somebody who had just died.’

‘But surely you can’t have recognized him? It was-’

‘Of course not,’ she said, interrupting him and sounding slightly annoyed. ‘But he told us about it later. Do you happen to have a mobile phone in your jacket pocket?’

Van Veeteren took it out and put it on the table.

‘It’s not working.’

She picked it up and studied it for a few seconds, then found the right button and switched it off.

‘Just in case,’ she said. ‘Anyway, you and Verlangen seem to be birds of a feather. He couldn’t let sleeping dogs lie.’

‘Several of us suffer from that weakness,’ admitted Van Veeteren. ‘Do you mind if I smoke as well?’

‘Not at all. Here, have one of mine so that you don’t need to use that nasty little machine.’

He did as he was bidden, and noticed as he lit the cigarette that his hands were less than steady. No wonder, he thought.

‘He came up here after you, I take it. Verlangen.’

She nodded.

‘Yes. The idiot. He was no doubt egged on by that old detective streak of his, and of course it wasn’t especially difficult to track us down once he had got wind of us. Not even for him. He turned up one evening in April, claiming he was some sort of market researcher. . It only took a few minutes for us to realize who he really was.’

‘And you shot him?’

She inhaled and paused before answering.

‘My husband took care of that. It’s a pity he made a mess of hiding the body.’

Van Veeteren pricked up his ears on hearing that last sentence. The way she said it made it quite clear who had been the driving force in their marriage.

Absolutely clear.

It also made it clear, unfortunately, what kind of an opponent she was. He knew that she wouldn’t make any mistakes when it came to hiding his body.

Everything, he thought. I’ve misjudged everything. For fifteen years.

And now I’m going to get my punishment.

She stubbed out her cigarette and stood up.

‘Stand up now, please.’

He raised himself out of the armchair.

Take off all your clothes apart from your underpants.’

‘I haven’t carried a gun for five years.’

‘Do as I say.’

As he carried out her instructions, she stood two metres away, watching him. Without moving a muscle. He threw his garments over the back of the chair, one after another, but even when he ended up by standing there in nothing but his underpants and his misery she just stood there without so much as a smile.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘You can get dressed again.’

He performed the same procedure in reverse, somewhat long-windedly, then sat down in the armchair again. Without releasing him from her gaze or from the aim of her pistol, she took a small bottle from her handbag, which was lying beside her on the sofa. She also produced a carafe and a glass from a low table at the side of the sofa. She poured out a couple of centimetres — he assumed that it was whisky — and dropped in four or five tablets from the bottle. They started to dissolve immediately in the brown liquid. She stirred the brew with a propelling pencil that she also took from her handbag. It all seemed quite routine, he thought, as if she were performing some mechanical exercise that she had carried out thousands of times before.

My Last Supper, he thought.

‘Here you are, drink this,’ she said, sliding the glass over to his side of the table.

He stared at the barrel of the pistol. Actually recalled having seen the exit hole of a bullet in the back of the head of a man who had been shot with a Pinchmann. It was rather large, if he remembered rightly.