The G File (50 page)

Chief of Police deKlerk leafed through his papers one more time, then declared that there was nothing else.

Rooth and Münster went back to Hotel See Warf – where they had been staying all the time they had been in Kaalbringen – at twenty minutes past seven on Sunday evening, and just as they were standing in the foyer wondering whether to take the lift up to their rooms or to have a beer in the bar, Münster’s mobile rang.

Rooth slipped into the toilet, and when he came out Münster had already finished talking.

‘Who was that?’ wondered Rooth.

Münster remained standing with his mobile in his hand, looking puzzled.

‘Ulrike,’ he said. ‘It was Ulrike Fremdli, the woman Van Veeteren lives with. She wondered if I knew why he hadn’t come home.’

‘Eh?’ said Rooth. ‘Why . . . ?’

‘He had said he would be back in Maardam by about five o’clock . . . It’s nearly half past seven now, and he’s evidently not answering his mobile.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Rooth. ‘Have you met her, this Ulrike Fremdli? I’ve only heard about her.’

‘Yes, I’ve met her.’

‘Is she a good woman?’

‘Very good,’ said Münster. ‘I wonder . . . Ah well, no doubt there’s a natural explanation.’

‘No doubt,’ said Rooth. ‘Shall we have a beer, then?’

When Van Veeteren pulled up in Wackerstraat and switched off the engine, he suddenly felt doubtful.

He remained in the car for a while, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and trying to work out what the problem was. Some kind of mysterious intuition, or just another example of his general ambivalence?

He plumped for the latter, and clambered out of the car. Noted that fru Nolan’s silver Japanese car was standing on the drive, and that everything looked peaceful. The sun had started to break through the greyish white morning cloud, and a corpulent man in his sixties was busy cutting the grass in the next-door garden. The insistent sound of the lawnmower hung over the whole area like a stubborn virus.

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.

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.’