The G File (2 page)

‘Let’s hear them.’

‘Distance and discretion, for instance.’

‘Distance and what . . . ?’

‘How much detail do you want? If he goes to a restaurant, for instance, do you want to know what he eats, who he talks to, what they say . . . ?’

She interrupted him by raising her left hand a few centimetres over the table. The swallow wiggled rather sensually.

‘I understand what you’re saying. It will be sufficient if you tell me what happens in broad outline. If I think any particular circumstances seem to be especially interesting, perhaps I can let you know?’

‘Of course. You are the one who makes the rules. And I assume he is not to know that I’m keeping an eye on him?’

She hesitated again.

‘Preferably not.’

‘Might I ask what your husband does for a living?’

‘Business. He runs an import company. Only just started, of course . . . But he did something similar in Denver.’

‘Importing what?’

She shrugged.

‘All kinds of things. Computer components, for instance. What does it matter what my husband does for a living? All I want is for you to keep an eye on what he’s up to.’

Verlangen clasped his hands on the table in front of him, and paused briefly.

‘Fru Hennan,’ he said in a tone of voice that he hoped would be interpreted as incorporating masculine firmness, ‘might I draw your attention to the fact that I haven’t yet accepted your commission. You want me to keep your husband under observation, and if I agree to do that I must know exactly what I’m letting myself in for. I’m not in the habit of jumping into whatever comes along with my eyes closed – you wouldn’t last long in my profession if you did that.’

She frowned. He could see that the possibility of him turning her down had never occurred to her.

‘I understand,’ she said. ‘Forgive me. But I assume you are used to acting with a certain degree of . . . discretion?’

‘Of course. Within reasonable limits. But without a knowledge of certain facts I simply can’t do what you want me to do in a satisfactory way. I have to know a little about your husband’s habits. What he does in a normal working day. The places he goes to, the people he meets. And so on. Most of all, of course, I would like to know what is behind all this – why you want to have him kept under observation: but I suppose I could do without that information.’

She made a vague movement of her head from right to left, and looked again at the Piranesi print for a few seconds.

‘Okay, obviously I respect your professional code of practice. As far as his routines are concerned, they are not exactly complicated. As I said, we live in that house out at Linden. He has his office in the centre of Maardam, and he spends six or seven hours there every day. We sometimes have lunch together, if I happen to be in town for some reason or other. I usually prepare the evening meal for seven o’clock, but occasionally he has dinner with business contacts . . . We don’t have many social contacts – we’ve only been living here for a couple of months, after all. Anyway, that’s about it in broad outline. Weekends are obviously rather different – we’re usually together all the time, and so I won’t need your services then.’

Verlangen had been making copious notes as she spoke, but now he scratched the back of his neck as he looked up.

‘What social contacts do you have, in fact?’

She dug out another cigarette.

‘None at all, really. Obviously my husband meets various people in connection with his work, but I only ever come into contact with the Trottas, if you can call it that . . . They are our nearest neighbours – a pair of utter bores, to be honest, but we have at least had dinner together in both our houses. He’s a pilot, she’s a housewife. They have a couple of insufferable children as well.’

‘Trotta?’

‘Yes.’

Verlangen made a note of the name.

‘Photo?’ he asked. ‘I must have a photograph of your husband.’

She produced a white envelope from her handbag and handed it over. He took out two photographs, both of them 10x15 centimetres.

Jaan G. Hennan stared him in the eye.

Ten years later, but still the same Jaan G., no doubt about that. The photographs seemed to have been taken very recently, probably on the same reel, and both of them in profile – one from the right, the other from the left. The same deep-set eyes. The same austere lips and firm jaw. The same close-cropped dark hair. He put the photographs back into the envelope.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it. Assuming that we can agree on details, of course.’

‘What details?’

‘Time. Method. Payment.’

She nodded.

‘Just for a few days, as I said. No more than a couple of weeks in any case. If you could start tomorrow, I’d be grateful . . . What do you mean by “method”?’

‘Twenty-four hours a day or just twelve? The degree of discretion or intrusion – the kind of thing I mentioned earlier.’

She inhaled and blew out a thin stream of smoke as she pondered. Just for a moment he had the feeling that she didn’t normally smoke at all, and had just bought a packet of Gauloises to make an impression on him. Some sort of impression.

‘Whenever he’s not at home,’ she decided. ‘That will be sufficient. From the moment he sets off in the morning until he comes back home – either early or late in the evening.’

‘And you don’t want him to notice me.’

There was another brief pause, and he registered that she still hadn’t quite made up her mind on that point.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t let him see you. If I change my mind about that I’ll let you know. How much do I have to pay?’

He pretended to think about that, and wrote down a few figures in his notebook.

‘Three hundred guilders per day, plus any expenses.’

That did not seem to worry her.

‘Payment for three days in advance. I might have to rent a room in Linden as well . . . When do you want me to report to you?’

‘Once a day,’ she said without hesitation. ‘I’d like you to ring me every day at some time during the morning. I’m always at home in the mornings. If I think it seems necessary, we can meet – but I hope it won’t come to that.’

Verlangen had another ‘why?’ on the tip of his tongue, but he managed to swallow it.

‘Okay,’ he said instead, leaning back on his chair. ‘I take it that we are in agreement. If you can give me your address and telephone number, I can start tomorrow morning . . . And I need the advance, of course.’

She took out a dark-red purse and produced two five-hundred-guilder notes. And a business card.

‘A thousand,’ she said. ‘Let’s round it up to a thousand for the time being.’

He took the money and the card. She stood up and reached out her hand over his desk.

‘Thank you, herr Verlangen. I’m very grateful that you could take on this job. It will . . . It will make my life easier.’

Will it really? he thought as he shook her hand. How? She was looking him straight in the eye for a long fraction of a second, and he wondered once again what it would feel like to touch some other part of her body than the firm and pleasantly cool palm of her hand.

‘I shall do my best,’ he promised.

She smiled, turned on her heel and left his office.

He remained standing, listening to her footsteps as she walked up the stairs. It almost felt as if he were waiting for some sort of curtain to fall.

Then he opened the refrigerator and took out a beer.

The moment he opened the door of his cramped little flat in Heerbanerstraat he realized that the vacuum-cleaner bags were still in the drawer of his desk in the office.

On the other hand, not a single one of the beer cans was left in the refrigerator. You win some and you lose some . . .

So his cleaning intentions would have to be put on ice: but one lost day was neither here nor there, of course. The smell of old, stuffy dirt and the stench of something stale which was presumably the mould underneath the bathtub, struck him as a sort of ‘welcome home’ greeting. One shouldn’t simply shrug off old habits and sell off the things that make you feel safe and secure just for the sake of it. Dust and dirt should not be held in contempt . . .

There was a pile of advertising leaflets and two bills on the floor underneath the letter slot. He picked it all up and threw it onto the basket chair, which was full of similar stuff. My home is my castle, he thought as he opened the balcony door, then turned back to observe the devastation. He contemplated the unmade bed, the unwashed dirty crockery and the rest of the chaotic mess. Switched off the stereo equipment, which must have been on for at least twenty-four hours. Noted that the right-hand loudspeaker was broken, and that he ought to do something about it.

Then he went into the bathroom, glanced at the filthy mirror and confirmed that he looked about ten years older than he had looked that morning.

Why do I bother to go on living? he wondered as he stepped into the shower and switched on the water.

And why do I keep on asking myself these optimistic questions, day in and day out?

An hour later it was eight o’clock and he had washed up three days’ worth of dirty dishes. He flopped down in front of the television and watched the first ten minutes of the news. The murder of a policeman in Groenstadt and a ministerial meeting in Berlin in connection with unrest in the financial markets. A mad swan that had caused a pile-up on the motorway outside Saaren. He switched off and telephoned his daughter.

She was not at home, and so he was obliged to exchange a few pleasantries with his ex-wife’s new boyfriend instead. It took half a minute, and afterwards he was able to congratulate himself on not having sworn a single time. Two cheers.

There were four beers in the fridge and a bottle of mineral water. He made a sandwich with salami, cheese and cucumber – but with no butter as he had forgotten to buy any – and after a brief inner struggle he selected the water. Sat down on the sofa again, took out his notepad and read what he had written.

Barbara Hennan. The beautiful American woman.

Maiden name Delgado, but now Hennan – thanks to having married that bastard Jaan G. Hennan. For some damned reason.

G, he thought. Why on earth pick G when there was a whole world of men to choose from?

And why the hell should he, Maarten Baudewijn Verlangen, have to spend what little time he had on something so bloody stupid as shadowing Jaan G. Hennan? The man he – more or less on his own – had made sure was placed under lock and key some . . . yes, it was almost exactly twelve years ago, he decided after some rapid mental calculations. The end of May 1975. While he was still working as a respectable police officer.

While he still had a proper job, a family, and a right to look at himself in the mirror without averting his gaze.

While he still had a future.

It was at the beginning of the 1980s that it all went to pot. 1981–2. Buying that house out at Dikken. All the arguments with Martha. Their love life simply shrivelling up like . . . like a worn-out condom.

The bribes. The sudden opportunity of earning a bit extra on the side by turning a blind eye to things. Not just a bit extra, in fact. Without the extra income they would never have been able to afford the interest and mortgage payments on the house. He had tried to explain that to Martha afterwards, after he had been caught out and his world had collapsed. But she had just shaken her head and snorted.

What about that lady? she had wondered. In what way had it been necessary for the preservation of their marriage for him to spend so many nights with her? Could he kindly explain that to her?

No, he couldn’t.

Five years, he thought. It’s five years since the world collapsed, and I’m still alive.

Just occasionally there were now moments when that didn’t surprise him any more.

He gulped down the rest of the water and went to fetch a beer. Moved over to the armchair with the reading lamp, and leaned back.

Barbara Hennan, he thought, and closed his eyes.

How the hell could such a beautiful woman become involved with an arsehole like G?

It was a riddle, to be sure, but not a new one. Women’s judgement when it came to men had backfired before in the history of the world. Gone astray when confronted by rampant stags in rut amidst the superficial values of everyday life. He dug out the photographs and studied them for a while with a degree of distaste.

Why? he wondered. Why does she want me to keep an eye on him?

Was there more than one answer? More than one possibility?

He didn’t think so. It was the same old story, of course. The unfaithful husband and the jealous wife. Who wanted proof. Evidence of his betrayal in black and white.

Maarten Verlangen had spent four years playing this game by now, and he reckoned that about two-thirds of his work was of this nature.

If he excluded the work he did for the insurance company, that is: but that aspect of his work was not really a part of his sleuthing activities. It was rather different. The insurance company Trustor had wanted a sort of detective who could investigate irregularities using somewhat unorthodox methods – and what could possibly be more appropriate in the circumstances than a police officer who had been sacked – or rather,
had chosen to leave the force rather than be hanged in a public place
. A gentleman’s agreement. There had been no question of a formal appointment; but as time went by there had been a commission here and another commission there – usually resolved to the advantage of the company – and so their cooperation had continued. When Verlangen occasionally checked his somewhat less than prodigious income, he concluded that it was about fifty–fifty: roughly half came from the insurance company, and half from his sleuthing activities.

He lit a cigarette – the day’s fortieth or thereabouts – and tried once again to conjure up the American woman in his mind’s eye. Fru Barbara Hennan. Thirty-seven or thirty-eight? She could hardly be any older than that. At least ten years younger than her husband, in other words.

And ten times more desirable. No, not ten times. Ten thousand times. Why on earth would anybody want to be unfaithful if they had a woman like Barbara? Incomprehensible.