Hakan Nesser - The Return

V: No.

H: So you weren’t the least bit worried about Beatrice?

V: No.

H: And what about the following week? Didn’t you miss her then, either?

V: No.

H: You never wondered where she might have gone to?

V: No.

H: Did you think it was a relief, not to have her around?

[ No reply from Verhaven ]

H: I repeat: Did you think it was a relief not to have her around?

V: At first, perhaps.

H: Did your fiancee have a job at that time?

V: Not just then.

H: Where did she work when she was employed?

V: At Kaunitz’s. The garden center in Linzhuisen. But only occasionally.

H: When did you tell the police that your fiancee,

Beatrice Holden, was missing?

V: On Tuesday, the sixteenth.

H: Where?

V: In Maardam, of course.

H: And what made you report her missing on that

particular day? If you weren’t worried?

V: It just occurred to me. As I was driving past the police station.

H: So you still didn’t think something might have

happened to her?

V: No. Why should I?

H: Don’t you think it would be natural to think that?

V: No. She usually got by.

H: But she didn’t on this occasion.

V: No, not on this occasion.

H: How did you hear that she’d been found dead?

V: The police came and told me.

H: How did you react to that?

V: I was sorry.

H: Sorry? Sergeant Weiss maintains that you didn’t react at all. That you simply thanked him and asked him to

go away.

V: Why should I cry on his shoulder? I can get by.

H: Don’t you think you’ve been acting rather strangely since Beatrice Holden disappeared?

V: No, I don’t think so.

H: Do you understand that other people might think so?

V: I don’t know what other people think. They can think whatever they like as far as I’m concerned.

H: Really? And you are absolutely certain that it wasn’t you who killed your fiancee?

V: It wasn’t me.

H: Did you often go to the part of the forest where her body was found?

V: No.

H: Have you ever been there?

V: I might have been.

H: But not that weekend when she disappeared?

V: No.

H: What do you think about her death, Mr. Verhaven?

V: Nothing.

H: You must have some idea about how she died?

V: Some man or other, of course. Some sick type who can’t find himself a woman.

H: You don’t regard yourself as somebody like that?

V: I have no difficulty in finding myself women.

H: Thank you. No further questions at present.

Van Veeteren stuffed the bundle of papers into the narrow space under the top of his bedside table. It was very nearly one o’clock. I’d better get some sleep, he thought. Verhaven?

If only he’d been present at the trials! At the very least he could have spent an hour or two in court in connection with the Marlene case, when he’d played a minor role in the investigation. It might have been enough, actually seeing him in the flesh.

A few minutes watching him in the dock and he’d have known. Known if the nagging worry at the back of his mind was something to follow up. If there was any justification for it at all, or if Verhaven really was the primitive man of violence he’d been portrayed as being.

Guilty or not guilty, then?

It was impossible to say. Impossible then, impossible now.

But no matter what, there was no getting away from one fact: Somebody had been lying in wait for him when he was released from prison.

Somebody had killed him and butchered his body. Somebody had tried to ensure that they wouldn’t be able to identify him. That must surely have been the intention?

And finally: Somebody must have had a reason. What?

That was another question that still remained. Untouched and unanswered.

He switched off the light. Closed his eyes, and before he knew it, he had started dreaming about Jess and the twins. In French.

It was astonishing what his mind was capable of in the early hours of the morning. .

Mind you, their visit to the ward the previous afternoon had hardly passed unnoticed.

A cracked windowpane, a split cuticle, a demolished infu-sion stand and other minor calamities. He had noticed that the smiles on the faces of the staff had become somewhat strained as time went by. As the noise level increased and accidents became more frequent.

How the hell does she manage? he wondered, allowing himself a faint smile as he slept. She must have inherited some of her father’s mental strength, presumably.

Sans doute, oui.

“Gossec’s Requiem?” said the young man with dark curly hair, pushing his glasses up onto his forehead. “Did you say Gossec’s Requiem?”

“Yes,” said Munster. “Is there such a thing?”

“Oh yes, there certainly is.” He nodded assiduously and leafed through a folder. “It’s just that we don’t have it. There is a recording with the French Radio Choir from 1959, I think; but there’s nothing on CD. Your best bet would be to ask at Laudener’s.”

“Laudener’s?”

“Yes, at Karlsplatsen. If they don’t have it we could always try to get it secondhand. The label is Vertique.”

“Thank you very much,” said Munster, and left the store.

He glanced at his watch and saw that he wouldn’t have time to go to Karlsplatsen. He was due to meet Judge Heidelbluum at six o’clock, and he had the feeling the old gentleman would not be best pleased if he arrived late.

I wish the chief inspector could stick with Bach or Mozart, he thought as he got into his car. Why the hell does he want to lie in a hospital bed listening to this particular requiem?

He parked in Guyderstraat, in the Wooshejm suburb, a considerable distance away from Heidelbluum’s house. No doubt the old gentleman wouldn’t be best pleased if he arrived too soon, either. He decided to take the opportunity of having a stroll around this exclusive district, where he didn’t normally set foot.

There never seemed to be a reason to do so. Insofar as there was any crime at all in Wooshejm, it was the more sophisticated, financial kind, not the sort of thing an ordinary, simple detective inspector would get involved in.

The houses skirted the western edge of the municipal forest; a lot of the sizeable plots backed directly up to the trees, so the owners could enjoy a very pleasant combination of town and countryside. There were about sixty or seventy houses in all, built at the beginning of this century or the end of the last; nowadays you could be sure that three or four times as many villas would be built in the same area. Munster knew that the wealth and fortunes concealed behind these flowering hedges and copper-topped walls accounted for most of the town’s tax income. This was where the cream lived, you could say.

Retired surgeons and professors, elderly generals and district judges, the occasional former government minister and indus-trial magnate of the old school. Newly arrived aristocratic families, perhaps, who had tired of the family seat and life in the country. There was no doubt that the average age of the gentlefolk living in this neighborhood was much closer to a hundred than fifty. And Heidelbluum was far from being a youngster, even in this exalted company.

A dying race, thought Munster as he sauntered slowly

along the quiet street, the air laden with the scent of jasmine; and when he heard the cries of children and the splashing of water behind one of the hedges, he knew that those responsible were great-grandchildren rather than grandchildren.

Ah well, some of it will be handed on to the next genera-tion, it seemed reasonable to assume.

He came to the Heidelbluum residence and rang the bell by the gate in the high wall. After a while he heard footsteps on the gravel path on the other side and a maid appeared, wearing a black skirt and blouse, an apron and a white hat.