The G File

20

Chief of Police Hiller felt nervous.

That was clear from a series of minor indications that Münster had no difficulty in interpreting. He licked his lips with the tip of his tongue after every tenth word. He clicked his Ballograph pen non-stop. He was sweating despite the fact that the temperature inside his office was nothing out of the ordinary, and he kept shuffling around on his chair as if he had a thistle between his buttocks.

He’s a buffoon, Münster thought.

It wasn’t the first time he had thought that. Or something along the same lines. Hiller had spread out in front of him on his large desk an array of daily newspapers. After the article on ‘The Pool Murder’ in Saturday’s Neuwe Blatt, a whole host of features had appeared. The Allgemejne, den Poost and the Telegraaf had carried large spreads on Sunday, and today — on Monday morning — Grouwer had once again taken the stage and demanded that the police at last, and for once, should satisfy the demands — the minimal demands! — that the general public and the taxpayers — not to mention the insured! — had a right to expect of them. There was a limit to what the people’s sense of justice could take. People like Jaan G. Hennan should simply not be allowed to go free!

‘A good point!’ said Hiller, mopping his brow with a paper towel. ‘He has a point, that damned journalist! We must sort this out. The situation is blatantly obvious: he has eliminated his wife in order to collect the insurance money!’

‘He was sitting in a restaurant when she died,’ pointed out Van Veeteren quietly.

‘He has an alibi,’ added Reinhart.

‘That doesn’t matter,’ said the chief of police, sweeping his arm over the newspapers. ‘Just look at all this! We shall be portrayed as flat-footed incompetents if we don’t solve this. For Christ’s sake, the man has done exactly the same thing once before!’

‘Very true,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘He succeeded on that occasion as well. We won’t be the only ones having to bear the shame.’

‘Shame!’ snorted Hiller. ‘There will be no question of any shame as far as we are concerned! Hennan will be arrested and found guilty of this, so we need to produce evidence that will stand up in court. I’ve spoken to the prosecutor this morning.’

‘I spoke to him on Saturday,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘He is in complete agreement with our approach.’

‘No matter what, we need to bring him to court,’ said Hiller, tapping with his Ballograph on one of the few empty spaces on his desk. ‘No matter what. I managed to persuade the prosecutor of how necessary this was. . even if the level of proof is not what it might be.’

‘He was convinced of that on Saturday,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I don’t think we need to sit here all morning going on about this — the situation is quite clear, after all. It must-’

‘Hennan must have had an accomplice!’ the chief of police interrupted. ‘I have read up on the case and come to the conclusion that this is the only possibility.’

‘Really?’ said Reinhart.

‘Some sort of hit man, yes. The prosecutor agreed. Your job is to find this contract killer, or to put pressure on Hennan so that he comes clean. We shall devote as much as possible in the way of resources to this, no stone must be left unturned. All Hennan’s contacts must be hunted down and interrogated! He has a record, after all.’

‘We know,’ said Reinhart. ‘We are not idiots. But given the way things stand at the moment. . Well, is the prosecutor prepared to go ahead with the little we have?’

The chief of police nodded seriously and wet his lips.

‘Yes. We need to have him arrested this afternoon. At an appropriate time before the press conference. The Chief Inspector and I will take that, the same policy as usual. Frankness and restraint. We don’t want to have the media against us in this case. We’re all on the same side — I assume I don’t need to go on about that?’

‘Hardly,’ said Van Veeteren with a sigh, checking his wrist watch. ‘Was there anything else? Press conference at three o’clock, is that right?’

‘Fifteen hundred hours,’ said Hiller. ‘Well, if you don’t have any questions, that was that, then.’

‘So there,’ said Reinhart, lighting his pipe. ‘That was that, then, to quote a well-known sage.’

He was sitting on one of the two visitor chairs in Van Veeteren’s office. Münster was on the other one, and the Chief Inspector himself was standing with his back to his colleagues, gazing out over the town through the open window. The sky was unsettled: an area of low pressure had drifted in from the south-west in the early hours of the morning, and put the damper on summer — but perhaps it was a better reflection of the mood in the office, in fact.

‘Well,’ said the Chief Inspector, ‘unfortunately we have to admit that he summed up the situation quite well for once. We’ve come as far as we’re going to get for the time being, and if we don’t get any further it will be up to the prosecutor to show that the evidence we have is sufficient — but God only knows how he’ll do that.’

‘What has le Houde discovered?’ asked Münster.

The Chief Inspector shrugged without turning round.

‘Not a lot,’ he said. ‘Or nothing at all, to be exact. Nothing from the diving tower apart from some fingerprints of herr and fru Hennan. Especially from her, which doesn’t exactly strengthen our case. Ditto inside the house. . The occasional fingerprint from persons unknown — but that’s normal. They had a cleaner, for instance. Heinemann has spoken to her: she came just once every other week, and there was never anybody at home. . Three times in all — they hired her at the beginning of May.’

‘No sign of anybody else being there that evening?’

‘Nothing at all.’

‘Pity,’ said Reinhart, blowing out a cloud of smoke. ‘But I suppose that was only to be expected.’

‘It can sometimes be wise to dampen down our expectations,’ said the Chief Inspector.

‘Has anybody spoken to Denver yet?’ wondered Münster.

Reinhart sighed.

‘Yes. I got hold of Lieutenant Horniman last night. He had just returned from his mother’s funeral, and wasn’t exactly in high spirits. As far as Hennan and Philomena McNaught are concerned, he had a theory I’m inclined to believe without more ado. He thinks Hennan killed her during that holiday out in the wilds — strangled her or shot her or cut her head off with an axe, you name it — then buried her one metre deep — or a yard, to quote the source — and reported that she had disappeared. That damned National Park is about as big as Ireland and it would involve a hell of an effort to find her.’

Van Veeteren stopped contemplating the weather and sat down at his desk.

‘That’s something we’ve always known,’ he said.

‘What is?’ asked Münster.

‘If murderers in general had the sense to dispose of the bodies of their victims properly, we wouldn’t catch very many of them. We must be thankful that people haven’t been bright enough to adopt that simple rule. Had he anything helpful to tell us — Horniman, that is?’

‘Zilch,’ said Reinhart. ‘But he’s just as sure as we are that Jaan G. Hennan is a blackguard of the first order.’

‘Blackguard?’ muttered the Chief Inspector and glared at Reinhart. ‘Do you no longer distinguish between a blackguard and a murderer?’

‘It’s very easy to be both,’ said Reinhart. ‘How’s it gone for Rooth and Jung in their search for an accomplice? That’s surely where we are going to make a breakthrough.’

‘No luck there either so far,’ said Van Veeteren, gazing out of the window at the overcast sky again. ‘Unfortunately. They have a list of about twenty names, and when they’ve gone through them all I’ll also have a chat with the ones who seem potentially interesting. I’ve asked Rooth to produce five names in any case — even if there isn’t a single prat who is really interesting.’

‘Find the one who knows something,’ said Münster. ‘It’s not the first time we’ve been looking for a key of that kind.’

‘No,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘The problem in this particular case is that the one with the knowledge happens also to be the murderer. Which could possibly mean that he might prefer to keep silent.’

‘That’s hardly the first time either,’ said Münster.

Reinhart nodded and looked impotent.

‘It’s so damned simple that it could drive you mad,’ he growled. ‘That bastard hires a gorilla who does the job for him, receives a substantial sum of money, and we don’t arrest him. Neither of them. Could there be some charge other than murder, by the way? If he wasn’t the one who literally did the deed?’

‘Of course,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Incitement, for instance; but there are several options to choose from. They could result in eighty years at least. But you are forgetting a few small details.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ said Reinhart.

‘In the first place,’ said the Chief Inspector, ‘we have to be able to demonstrate that Barbara Hennan didn’t die as a result of an accident, as G maintains. In the second place we have to prove that Hennan really did hire a contract killer. And to be honest, we haven’t really got very far on either of those obligations — don’t you agree?’

‘I know, I know,’ said Reinhart. ‘I wasn’t born yesterday. Damn and blast!. . But in a way I’m beginning to think that it was a good thing that our private eye let the cat out of the bag after he’d taken a drop too much.’

‘Why?’ wondered Münster.

‘Because it would have felt even worse to have been forced to let Hennan go free at this early stage. All the fuss means that there will at least be a trial.’

‘Yes,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I’m inclined to agree with you. But of course there’s a risk that the judge will intervene and dismiss the case if he thinks the evidence is insufficient. Even if the prosecutor seems to be willing to give the circus a green light. We don’t know who the judge will be yet, but there are a few who care as much about public opinion as a killer bear worries about a flea.’

‘Poetic,’ said Reinhart. ‘Are you thinking about Hart?’

‘I suppose I am,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Anyway, at least we have a few weeks in which to dig deeper. And of course we have stumbled upon bits of information before. All initiatives are welcome. . And anybody who feels up to sitting eye to eye with G is welcome to do so — just let me know in advance.’

‘I don’t think I would like that,’ said Reinhart.

‘What you would like is not very relevant in this case,’ said the Chief Inspector.

The press conference came and went.

The decision to arrest Hennan was of course a goody that the reporters were only too pleased to gulp down, and Van Veeteren was reminded yet again of the rather-nail-him-than-bail-him mentality that always seemed to prevail in the media at this early stage of a case. The first priority was to find the murder, the spectacular crime, and they had done that. Then there was a race to point out the murderer: that was the detail the next day’s billboards and headlines would feature. In Act Three, they liked to do a complete about turn (if that was possible, and the Chief Inspector had no doubt that there were circumstances in this case that would make it possible) — and try to stand up for the accused. Was he really guilty? Had the police in fact arrested the wrong man? Should an innocent man be found guilty? Could one have faith in the rule of law?

And then, if the accused was in fact found guilty: was it possible to write stories about him? His childhood and teenage years and a mass of extenuating circumstances?

That is how things would proceed, and over the years Van Veeteren had learned how to accept the inevitable. If he had been a journalist rather than a detective chief inspector, he would presumably have played the game according to those rules, just as now — as far as possible — he tried to act in accordance with the terminology that formed the framework of a CID officer’s work. There was a temptation to skirt round them from time to time, from case to case, but so far — after almost a quarter of a century in the trade — he had never overstepped the mark. Not flagrantly, at least.

After the tussle with the press, which lasted less than half an hour, he withdrew to his office and spent some time chewing over these circumstances. Wondering about if, one day, he might reach a point when he felt the urge to take the law into his own hands. When the circumstances were such that doing so might be justified. Morally and existentially.

Even in the private sphere of his own ruminations, he tried to keep his thoughts on a theoretical level. Tried to avoid dragging G onto the stage — so that the question remained at the level of what one ought to do, rather than what one would like to do. To echo Reinhart’s words.

That was easier said than done, and when he realized that he was wishing he could roll Jaan G. Hennan up in that old gymnastics mat that had squeezed the life out of Adam Bronstein’s fragile soul, he gave up.

Reminded himself of the previous day’s decision to have a serious talk with his wife, and left the police station.

That also came and went.

When they had more or less concluded that the split between them was a sort of inevitable fact, they were suddenly able to talk to each other again — but he wondered deep down if this somewhat melancholy mutual respect was in fact the clearest indication that the fate of their marriage was sealed, once and for all. When they were no longer able to allow their emotions to spill over into an out-and-out quarrel, he found it hard to believe that there was any foundation left on which to build. Whatever it was that he had envisaged and desired half a lifetime ago, it was certainly not this lukewarm and cheerless stand-off.

Perhaps in fact Renate felt the same: but they didn’t discuss this aspect of their putative coexistence. Instead they came to a sort of half-hearted agreement: this was — if he understood it rightly — that they should continue for another six months, and see how things developed.

And that they should accept a shared responsibility for Erich, who — and it was at this point he saw that Renate was on the point of bursting into tears linked with her bad conscience — was very much in need of all the parental support he could be offered. They were touchingly in agreement on this, and if only their vulnerable son had been at home that rainy Monday evening, they would no doubt have had a serious conversation between the three of them.

But he wasn’t. And when at about half past eleven Van Veeteren heard him sneaking in through the front door and into his room, Renate was already asleep. He let sleeping dogs lie.

I know so damned little about his life, he thought.

What does he think about? What are his dreams and plans and fantasies?

Why don’t I know more about my own son?

And with the bitter taste of neglect in his mouth he fell asleep.