The G File (12 page)

‘The same morning that she died,’ said fru Trotta without hesitation. ‘Shortly after eight o’clock. She drove off towards town. We just said hello – I was out with Ray.’

‘Ray?’

‘Our dog. A Pomeranian.’

‘I see,’ said Münster. ‘And you never saw her again after that?’

‘Not until I identified her at the mortuary.’

‘And herr Hennan. What about him?’

‘What about him?’

‘Did you see him at all on Thursday?’

‘No. As you might have noticed, we can’t see into each other’s gardens.’

‘Yes, I have noted that,’ said Münster. ‘They had two cars, is that right?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said fru Trotta, as if fewer vehicles than that was unthinkable in Kammerweg. ‘A Saab and a little Japanese thing. She used to drive the little one.’

‘Yes,’ said Münster. ‘Of course. Were you at home on Thursday evening?’

‘We were at a little party arranged by some good friends of ours, but we were back home by about ten. The girls need a good night’s sleep.’

‘I’m sure they do,’ agreed Münster. ‘Did you notice anything unusual about Villa Zefyr when you came home?’

‘No.’

‘Nor later on that evening?’

‘Nothing at all. We can’t see into their garden, as I’ve said.’

‘Did you see if anybody was at home? If there were lights on, anything like that?’

‘As I keep saying, we can’t see into their garden. We can’t see from here if there are any lights on or not.’

She was becoming irritated again. Münster looked down at his notebook and thought for a few seconds.

‘Jaan G. Hennan,’ he said eventually. ‘Could you give me your personal opinion of him?’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m asking you to.’

She considered that weighty argument for some time, while examining her fingernails – of which there were ten, varnished beige.

‘He’s not our type.’

‘I’ve gathered that. Could you be a bit more precise?’

‘Not our type at all. Pushy and . . . well, unreliable. He doesn’t create a pleasant impression.’

‘Impertinent?’ wondered Münster.

‘Maybe not quite that. But our girls don’t like him. They can usually detect that kind of thing. Do you have children of your own?’

‘Yes,’ said Münster. ‘A little boy. Do you know anything about Hennan’s background?’

‘Only that he’s lived in America for ten years. Some kind of businessman.’

‘What was the relationship like between herr and fru Hennan? Did you notice anything at all?’

She scraped a speck of something from off her little fingernail before answering.

‘She was more or less the same as him,’ she said. ‘They seemed to suit each other. Mind you, he was older, of course.’

‘But no dissension, as far as you know?’

She shook her head.

‘I don’t think so. But it wouldn’t surprise me. Are you suggesting that . . . that he might have had something to do with her death?’

She tried to ask that question in the same neutral tone of voice she had been using throughout their conversation, but Münster could hear undertones of fascinated interest.

‘We are not excluding the possibility,’ he said. ‘My boss doesn’t like excluding any possibilities at all.’

‘I see,’ said Trotta, and forgot for a second to close her mouth.

‘But nothing dramatic?’ Münster asked. ‘No quarrels or anything like that you happened to be present at?’

It was obvious that fru Trotta would have liked nothing better than to have witnessed a quarrel between her neighbours. She sat in silence for a few seconds, scouring her memory – but soon her better self took command.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing like that. Mind you . . . mind you, it’s a long way from here to their house, as I’ve said.’

Münster nodded.

‘Did they drink?’ he asked. ‘To excess, I mean.’

Amelia Trotta was unable to provide any dramatic information on that point either. Instead she sighed, and looked at the clock.

‘I think . . .’ she began, but then lost the thread, overcome once again by that tantalizing possibility. ‘Surely you don’t think . . . ?’ she wondered instead. ‘Surely you can’t seriously think that . . . ?’

She was unable to put her question into words, but the thought remained suspended over the table in that neat and tidy living room. Like a ketchup stain on a white linen tablecloth, Münster thought as he prepared to take his leave of the idyll.

‘We have no definite theories as yet,’ he explained, rising to his feet. ‘But exploring various possibilities is a part of our work in the CID. I might want to have a chat with your husband in due course – do you think he would have any objections to that?’

‘I’ll warn him,’ said fru Trotta, showing willing to assist. ‘But he’s away on his travels quite a lot, so you’ll need to arrange a time well in advance. He’s a pilot.’

‘I appreciate the problems,’ said Münster. ‘What’s your profession?’

‘I’m a dermatologist,’ said Trotta, standing up straight. ‘But I’m at home for as long as the girls are at school. They need to have me around.’

I wonder, thought Münster, trying to recall what on earth a dermatologist did. Something to do with skin, he thought. But it might just as well be freshwater fish, or mites.

He decided to look it up when he had the chance. Then he thanked fru Trotta for being so helpful, and left Villa Vengali. As he walked through the garden, he had confirmation of what she had said about visibility between the two houses. He couldn’t see so much as a glimpse of the light-blue facade of Villa Zefyr. Only a narrow strip of the white-painted diving tower could be made out through a narrow gap in the thick mass of greenery.

It’s reminiscent of this case as a whole, he thought as he clambered into his car. The bottom line is we can’t see much at all.

Van Veeteren stared at a broken toothpick he was holding in his left hand.

In his right hand he was holding a telephone receiver, and that was what he really wanted to be staring at. But since his physiognomy, in some respects at least, was quite normal, that was an impossibility.

Assuming, that is, that he didn’t want to prevent himself from hearing Chief Inspector Sachs’s voice: and he didn’t. Not in these circumstances.

‘What the hell are you saying?’ he bellowed. ‘A gumshoe?’

‘Verlangen,’ said Sachs. ‘His name is Maarten Verlangen. He used to work for you in the past, he claims.’

‘I couldn’t care less if he did,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘But he says he’s been commissioned to keep an eye on Jaan G. Hennan, is that right?’

‘Yes indeed,’ said Sachs. ‘Commissioned by his wife – the woman who’s now dead. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday last week – although he wasn’t exactly overworked on Friday. The devil only knows what this means, but the most remarkable thing is that he was sitting there keeping Hennan under observation all last Thursday evening and into the early hours. At that restaurant. Columbine’s. Well, I have to say I don’t know how we should interpret that . . .’

‘Interpret!’ snorted Van Veeteren. ‘We’re not going to interpret anything. Where is he?’

‘Who?’

‘The gumshoe, of course. Where is he now?’

‘Er. . . .’ said Chief Inspector Sachs.

‘What?’ said Chief Inspector Van Veeteren. ‘Speak up!’

‘He . . . He’s left. But I—’

‘You mean you’ve let him go? What the hell . . . ?’

‘I have his name and telephone number, of course. I said we’d be in touch.’

Van Veeteren crumpled up the remains of the toothpick and stabbed himself in the thumb.

‘Ow!’ he groaned. ‘What else did he say? Surely he must have had something to—’

‘Not a lot,’ interrupted Sachs. ‘He had no idea why he was supposed to be shadowing Hennan. Apparently he spent most of the time in his car, gaping up at Hennan’s office window. Apart from Thursday evening, that is.’

‘And it was Barbara Hennan who employed him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘He didn’t know, as I said.’

‘I’m not deaf. What did he think?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘No, that’s what he said . . .’

‘Stupid berk. Anyway, let’s have his telephone number so that we can sort this mess out.’

‘By all means, here we go,’ said Chief Inspector Sachs, and read out Maarten Verlangen’s numbers, to both his home and his office.

‘Thank you,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘That’ll be all for now, I’ve no more time to waste on you.’

He started with the home number.

No reply.

Then the office number.

No reply – apart from a recorded message regretting that Verlangen’s Detective Agency was closed at the moment, but that they accepted commissions of all kinds at reasonable prices, and that callers could leave a message after the tone.

Van Veeteren thought carefully about the wording of his message while he was waiting for the tone.

‘Maarten Verlangen,’ he growled when the peep eventually sounded. ‘If you are keen to carry on living, for God’s sake make sure that you contact Chief Inspector Van Veeteren at Maardam CID. Immediately!’

He remained sitting there for a while, cursing to himself and contemplating his injured thumb – until the reality behind Chief Inspector Sachs’s revelation slowly but surely calmed him down.

The actual content of the message – the fact that the dead woman, the corpse in a bathing costume lying on the bottom of that confounded swimming pool in Linden, had hired a private detective just a few days before she died.

A private dick who was supposed to keep an eye on what her husband was getting up to. That accursed Jaan G. Hennan!

Van Veeteren rummaged around, produced a cigarette, and lit it. What the hell? he thought. What the hell does this mean? Let’s face it, she must . . . she must have suspected something. Isn’t that what it must mean? Come on, ring damn you, you godforsaken gumshoe!

He glared at the silent telephone. Realized that it was barely a minute since he recorded his hard-hitting message, and that one could scarcely expect Verlangen to turn up at his office with such exemplary timing. He inhaled deeply and checked his watch.

Half past two. High time he set off for his badminton match with Münster, in other words. He stubbed out his cigarette, stood up and dug out his racket and his sports bag from the cupboard.

Look out, Inspector, he thought. I’m not to be trifled with today.

On his way down in the lift, it dawned on him that he knew who Maarten Verlangen was. And why he had left the force.

When Verlangen left the police station in Linden, he had had three more or less incompatible feelings inside him.

The first was that it was a relief to have this confounded Hennan business off his back. It was precisely a week since the beautiful American woman had turned up at his office: now she was dead, and what had actually happened was a matter for the police to sort out, not Maarten Baudewijn Verlangen.

The second was that he felt somehow empty deep down inside. As if he had given up something: it was not clear what, exactly, but he could hardly deny that he had somehow failed in his task. If a private detective had any sort of moral function in a society, it was to be able to step in and put things to rights when the police force had failed to do so. That was how he usually justified his existence, at least, when he needed to boost his ego and stiffen his backbone.

His theoretical backbone. You have to take life as it comes, and Maarten Verlangen understood the importance of adjusting his motives in order to cope with it. He was no better or worse on that score than any other so-called honest, upright citizen.

But when it came to Barbara Hennan, he had failed to live up to his principles, that could hardly be denied. She had come to him with a somewhat obscure cry for help: he had done absolutely nothing, now she was dead, and he had shuffled off the responsibility into the hands of the police. Whatever it was, it was not an honourable retreat.

Damn and blast, he thought. I’m a seventh-rate shit.

The third feeling was of a more trivial, everyday kind. He was thirsty. He was absolutely desperate for a large beer, and before he drove back to Maardam he dropped in at Henry’s bar and ensured that, if nothing else, that particular problem was solved.

Every cloud has a silver lining, he thought. One thing at a time.

Director Kooperdijk at the insurance company F/B Trustor was reminiscent of a little bull.

He was also reminiscent of – and indeed could almost have been mistaken for – Verlangen’s former father-in-law, and it was always with a feeling of unease that he tried to cope with the strength emanating from those steel-blue eyes. The man as a whole radiated energy that was so intense, it could not be suppressed. It occasionally forced its way out in the form of aggression or insults. A sort of safety valve, Verlangen used to think. To prevent him from boiling over. Martha’s time bomb of a father had been just the same: if there was one thing about which he had no regrets after the divorce it was the end of the confrontations – and the far from subtle insinuations about his son-in-law’s shortcomings and negligence – at the obligatory monthly Sunday dinners in their large mansion up in Loewingen.

Another case of every cloud . . .

But Kooperdijk’s pistol-like gaze over the desk in the luxurious office in Keymer Plejn always reminded him of it.

Like now. It was half past two in the afternoon: Verlangen had arrived fifteen minutes late, and blamed parking problems in the centre of town as it would have been a tactical error to admit that what had actually delayed him was the beer at Henry’s bar.

‘Sit down,’ said Kooperdijk. ‘We have a problem.’

Verlangen sat down in the low armchair in front of the desk. The director’s chair was at least fifteen centimetres higher, which was of course no accident.

‘A problem?’ said Verlangen, popping two throat tablets into his mouth. ‘What kind of a problem?’

‘Two problems, in fact,’ said Kooperdijk.

‘You don’t say,’ said Verlangen.

‘The first has to do with your work.’

‘My work?’

‘The so-called work you do for us. We have begun to reassess the situation. It leaves much to be desired.’