Hakan Nesser - The G File

Erich? mumbled a voice somewhere inside him. Are you still looking down at me, my son?

He heard no answer, but nevertheless made up his mind how the final scene would appear. There was no reason to delay things any longer. Time had run out. He could feel the sweat pouring down his back.

One chance in a hundred, he had already decided.

At most.

‘What should we do?’ said Bausen. ‘I have no doubt about that at all. We must send out an urgent S.O.S. message on every damned radio and television channel you can find, asking for information about Van Veeteren and his car. Without delay! This is not just some sort of coincidence, and if there’s anything in what Rooth claims, it could be urgent — absolutely top priority urgent!’

It could also be too late, he thought; but he didn’t say that.

‘All right,’ said deKlerk. ‘I’d already intended to do that, of course. But what else should we do, I meant?’

‘What else?’ muttered Bausen. ‘We must help Rooth and Münster. Check with the neighbours to see whether anybody noticed a blue Opel in Wackerstraat yesterday. . And we can also cross our fingers — and arms and legs and eyes and everything else. Would you like me to come to the station?’

DeKlerk hesitated for half a second.

‘Yes, please,’ he said. ‘That would be best, I suppose.’

Münster and Rooth entered the Nolans’ house via a ventilation window at the back.

They then spent five or six minutes wandering aimlessly around from room to room in the vain hope of stumbling upon something that could give an indication of what had happened.

Always assuming that anything at all had happened.

‘What are we looking for?’ Münster wondered.

‘I’m damned if I know,’ said Rooth. ‘But if you find whatever it is, I’ll let you know.’

‘Good,’ said Münster. ‘I have always admired your ability to explain things.’

Rooth didn’t respond. Münster looked around the spacious living room. There was no trace of Elizabeth Nolan — not as far as they could see, in any case.

Or rather, nothing that suggested where she might have gone. Naturally there were plenty of conceivable legitimate reasons for her not being at home — they had already ascertained that the two cars, the Rover and the Japanese, were in their usual places in the garage and on the drive: but this was a fact that didn’t really throw light on very much. There were buses and trains, for example. Not to mention aeroplanes, if one had reason to travel rather further away. When Münster checked for the third time that fru Nolan was not in her bed, nor hanging in the wardrobe in her bedroom, he began to feel frustrated over the situation.

‘We’re getting nowhere,’ he said to Rooth, who had just come out of the bathroom for the second time. ‘We’re farting around like a pair of idiots. We’re wasting our time here. We must find something more rational to do.’

Rooth shrugged helplessly, and looked out of the window in time to see Beate Moerk and Probationer Stiller getting out of a car.

‘Reinforcements,’ he said. ‘Now there are four of us. Shall we take a neighbour each after all. . and hope that they haven’t already left for work?’

Münster looked at his watch. It was twenty past seven, and he was still feeling sick. It had got worse, in fact.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I suppose it can’t do any harm.’

‘Coffee?’ asked deKlerk.

Bausen shook his head and sat down at the desk opposite his thirty-year-younger successor.

‘The S.O.S. messages have been sent out,’ said deKlerk. ‘They’ll be broadcast in news bulletins on the telly and the radio every half hour until-’

‘I know,’ said Bausen, interrupting him. ‘I heard it in the car on the way here. What’s happening in Wackerstraat?’

‘They’re busy interviewing the neighbours. Fru Nolan wasn’t at home. That doesn’t necessarily imply anything, but for the moment we have no other clues to follow up.’

Bausen nodded dejectedly.

‘It’s enough, I fear,’ he said. ‘If we take Rooth’s little detail seriously, and assume she in fact only pretended to pass out, well. . In that case Elizabeth Nolan isn’t somebody to take lightly.’

‘It’s only quite a small detail,’ suggested deKlerk.

‘Maybe. But that doesn’t matter. We have an either-or situation, as they say.’

‘Either-or?’

‘Yes. If Rooth was right, we mustn’t make light of it. She tried to give the impression of being in shock, but in fact she wasn’t. That can only mean one thing. The death of her husband was not a surprise to her. . And the next step isn’t difficult to take either.’

‘You mean she killed him?’ said deKlerk.

‘We can take that as a hypothesis. For the moment, at least. And that she presumably had good reasons for doing it. . And so on. No matter how we think about it, it must all go back to that business fifteen years ago. Don’t ask me how. But for heaven’s sake, I’ve got to know Van Veeteren pretty well over the years, and I’ll be damned if he’s the kind of person who just disappears into thin air for no good reason.’

‘What do you think act-’ began deKlerk, but was interrupted by the telephone ringing.

He picked up the receiver and listened. Put his hand over the mouthpiece and informed Bausen in a stage whisper:

‘A woman with information. In connection with the S.O.S.’

He continued listening, asked a few questions and wrote down notes for a few minutes. Bausen leaned back on his chair and watched him attentively — and as it became clear what the call was all about, he began to feel something loosening up inside him. As if he had been holding his breath all morning.

Or had a firmly clenched fist in the middle of his solar plexus.

At last, he thought. At last something is being resolved in connection with this damned business.

But for God’s sake, don’t let. .

He never formulated the thought. He didn’t need to.

‘I’ve finished now.’

She stood up from her place on the fallen tree trunk.

‘How do you know that?’

He clambered up out of the grave, stretched his back muscles cautiously and took hold tightly of the spade handle with both hands. Was careful to ensure that the blade didn’t sink into the ground, but simply rested on a tussock of grass.

‘I don’t think I want to lie any deeper than that.’

She examined the grave briefly and seemed to be weighing something up. He checked his watch. It was five minutes to seven. The forest had come to life now. He perceived it in a sort of distant and semi-conscious way: by means of sensual impressions that were so subtle, he never registered them singly. Or bothered to register them. Faint noises, faint smells, faint movements.

‘Close to heaven,’ he said. ‘I think I prefer to lie as high as possible. If it were your grave I would dig it a little deeper, of course.’

She had no answer to that. She just gritted her teeth so that her mouth became no more than a thin streak, and raised the gun.

‘May I have one final wish?’

‘One final wish? Let’s hear it then.’

She laughed. A little nervously, despite everything. He cleared his throat and grasped the spade handle even more tightly. Tensed the muscles in his legs and arms.

‘A bird. I’d like to see a bird as I die. Can you wait until one appears?’

He looked up at the pale sky above the trees. He heard her producing a sort of noise somewhere between a snort and a laugh.

Then he saw that she was also looking up at the sky.

Now, he thought.

He took a short pace forward and swung the spade.

Heard the shot and felt the pain at the same moment.

A pain so intense that he could never have imagined it. Never.