The G File

23

The building was on Westerkade, almost as far out as the Loorn Canal, and when Verlangen saw it he didn’t understand why the local authorities hadn’t insisted on demolishing it ages ago.

Nor did he understand how anybody could consider living in it. The dirty and decrepit brick building had four floors, but the street frontage was no more than twelve to fifteen metres long; on one side of it was a scrapyard, and on the other some sort of warehouse made of rusty corrugated iron. Nevertheless, when he entered through the disintegrating wooden front door he couldn’t help but feel a little twinge of satisfaction: despite everything there were evidently folk who lived in worse conditions than he did himself.

Inside the vaulted entrance hall it was as dark as inside a sack of coal, and he was forced to light a match in order to find the door leading into the stairwell. There were no name plates on any of the doors he passed, but The Wheelchair had said the top floor, so he assumed he should continue up the stairs. He found it hard to believe that anybody lived in the flats he passed, but of course you never can tell. A sort of dirty, dusky half-light filtered in through a broken window, and the whole place was suffused with a smell of pissoir and decay. Lumps of plaster had fallen off the ceiling and walls here and there, and something that must have been a large rat slunk into a hole in the wall between the first and second floors.

At the top of the stairs were three doors, but two of them were covered by heavy planks nailed onto the frames. After hesitating for several long seconds, he pulled himself together and knocked hard on the third one.

Nothing happened, so he knocked again, even harder.

More time passed, then he heard a sort of shuffling noise from inside. As if somebody was dragging a piano or a coffin over the floor. That same somebody started coughing and hawking up phlegm, and then there was a rattling noise from a security chain and the door opened ten centimetres.

‘Kekkonen?’ said Verlangen.

Kekkonen wasn’t really called Kekkonen, but he was the spitting image of an old president of one of the Nordic countries, and nobody called him anything else.

‘Verlangen?’

‘Yes.’

He unhooked the chain and opened the door. A grey-spotted cat slunk out, and Verlangen slunk in. Kekkonen closed the door. Verlangen looked around. The flat comprised one room, a window, a humming refrigerator and a mattress on the floor. There might have been a toilet as well — it smelled like it.

‘Welcome, for God’s sake,’ said Kekkonen. ‘What the hell do you want?’

‘Do you live here?’ asked Verlangen.

‘At the moment,’ said Kekkonen. ‘Have you got a fag?’

Verlangen gave him one and watched him lighting it with shaking hands. Kekkonen had aged enormously since Verlangen had last seen him. He looked like a hunched little old man, despite the fact that he couldn’t have been more than about forty-five, and his completely bald head, which in the old days at least had a certain lustre about it, was now more reminiscent of a skull. He wondered what drugs Kekkonen was on, and how many years he had left. Or months.

‘What do you want?’ he asked again, flopping down onto the mattress among all the blankets, crumpled daily papers and something that must once have been a sleeping bag. Verlangen had no desire to join him, and remained standing.

‘I thought The Wheelchair had explained. Hennan. Jaan G. Hennan.’

‘I don’t know him,’ said Kekkonen.

‘Don’t talk crap. You’ve told Duijkert and The Wheelchair that you’ve met him, and I’ve been looking for you for over a week.’

‘I don’t know anybody called Hennan,’ said Kekkonen.

Verlangen dug out a fifty-guilder note from his pocket, and dangled it in front of Kekkonen’s nose.

‘You helped us to nail him last time, and we let you go free as a thank-you gesture. Have you forgotten that?’

He could see that Kekkonen’s memory did not extend all that far back in time, but fifty guilders were fifty guilders no matter what.

Kekkonen sat up, leaning against the wall, and took a few puffs of his cigarette.

‘A hundred,’ he said.

‘Fifty,’ said Verlangen. ‘This is only a tiny matter. I gather you met Hennan somewhere or other: what was it about?’

Kekkonen grabbed the note and tucked it underneath the mattress.

‘Not met,’ he said. ‘Saw.’

‘Okay, saw. Out with it — surely I don’t have to cross-examine you?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Not sure?’

‘Yes. That it was him.’

‘That it was Hennan?’

‘Yes, it was. . a bit unclear. I could have been somebody else.’

‘That’s not what you said to The Wheelchair.’

‘I couldn’t care less about The Wheelchair.’

‘I’m sure that’s true. Come on now, out with it.’

‘You’re not a cop any longer, is that right?’

‘You know that I’m not a cop any more.’

‘Congratulations,’ said Kekkonen with a grin. ‘It’s always good to know that people are making progress in life. How about another fag?’

‘For Christ’s sake, you haven’t even finished that one yet,’ said Verlangen, nodding in irritation at Kekkonen’s right hand.

‘Good Lord,’ said Kekkonen in surprise, and took a puff. Dropped the butt into an empty bottle and was given another cigarette.

Please, God, Verlangen thought. I can’t take much more of this.

‘Come on, now,’ he urged. ‘You say you saw Jaan G. Hennan: tell me about it, and then I’ll leave you in peace.’

Kekkonen coughed for quite a long time, then he sat absolutely motionless for several seconds, with his mouth half-open and staring into space. Verlangen realized that he was trying to pull himself together for a big mental effort.

‘Yes, I saw him,’ he said. ‘If it really was him.’

‘Go on,’ said Verlangen.

‘In the park, that bloody park. . what’s its name. . Wollersparken, something like that?’

‘Wollerimsparken?’

‘Wollerimsparken, yes. I slept there for a few nights not long ago. . I sometimes sleep outside when the weather’s good.’

‘I’m sure you do,’ said Verlangen. ‘So you saw Hennan together with somebody else, is that right?’

‘Yes,’ said Kekkonen. ‘He came with that bloke who was in Maardam then for a few days. .’

‘Who?’ said Verlangen.

Kekkonen shrugged.

‘When?’

‘God only knows. A month ago, or thereabouts. A big bloke with a ponytail. . a killer if ever I saw one. . a dangerous bastard, no doubt — I think he was an Englishman. . or an Irishman, something like that. .’

‘Name?’ said Verlangen.

‘No idea,’ said Kekkonen. ‘I think they called him Liston, something like that. .’

‘Liston?’

‘Yes. That’s a boxer. Or was. .’

‘I know,’ said Verlangen. ‘So he was coloured, was he?’

‘Not at all,’ said Kekkonen. ‘But he certainly seemed to be a strong bugger.’

‘I see. Anyway, what did Hennan and this Liston fellow do in the park?’

Kekkonen furrowed his brow and concentrated again.

‘They sat on a bench,’ he said. ‘They sat there talking. . for quite a long time. . I was sort of lying in the bushes behind them. I remember that they carried on talking for ages — I needed to go for a piss, but I didn’t dare, sort of. . It was in the morning. A lovely morning, lots of birds twittering away and all that — that’s what’s so brilliant about-’

‘Did you hear what they were talking about?’

Kekkonen shook his head.

‘Not a word,’ he said. ‘I just lay there, waiting. I very nearly pissed myself, but I just managed to avoid it. When they left he got a great bloody big envelope. .’

‘Who got the envelope?’

‘Liston, of course. That big bloke. . He got an envelope from the man who might have been Hennan, and then they left.’

‘And what happened next?’

‘I went for a piss.’

Verlangen thought for a moment.

‘Was that all?’ he said.

Kekkonen snorted.

‘For Christ’s sake, of course it was,’ he said. ‘I told you it was nothing. . Anyway, you know all there is to know about it. Are you sure you’re not a cop any longer?’

‘I’m not a cop,’ Verlangen assured him. ‘This Liston, did you see him again afterwards?’

Kekkonen thought that over.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think so. I’d seen him once before, that’s all. . At Kooper’s, I think.’

‘But not with Hennan?’

‘No, not with Hennan. God, but you do go on and on. .’

‘All right,’ said Verlangen. ‘I won’t disturb you any longer. I expect you’ve got a lot to be getting on with.’

‘You can bet your bloody life I have,’ said Kekkonen. ‘But I think it was worth a bit more than fifty.’

‘Kiss my arse,’ said Verlangen and left the room.

Huh, he thought when he emerged into the drizzle in Westerkade. What the hell am I supposed to make of this?

He checked his watch: it was half past seven. In less than twenty-four hours he would be giving evidence in the courtroom in Linden.

Liston?

Unless Kekkonen had made it all up thanks to his mashed-up brain, there had been somebody in Maardam in the beginning of June called Liston. Or somebody who was known as Liston, at least.

Who had been given an envelope by Jaan G. Hennan one morning in Wollerimsparken. A man who might have been Hennan.

That was all.

As he was wandering back alongside the canal, he tried to imagine Kekkonen in the witness box. It was not a pleasant sight — or wouldn’t be if it was possible to get him there. Probably not, he thought. Kekkonen had an ability to disappear if it was in his interest to do so: that was in fact probably the only ability he had kept intact over the years.

But if by hook or by crook they managed to get him in there, what would Kekkonen say? If Verlangen knew him right he would shut up like a clam, or possibly claim that he couldn’t remember anything at all. That’s what he used to do twelve years ago, and it was probably what he would do today.

Or perhaps he would say that he had been given a fifty-guilder note by Verlangen to spill the beans, and so he had made something up.

Damn and blast! thought Maarten Verlangen as he made his way home through the increasingly heavy rain. This is pointless.

Utterly pointless.

By the time he finally reached Kleinmarckt he was soaked through. He hesitated for a moment, then slunk into the Café Kloisterdoom and ordered a beer and a gin.

No, it would do more harm than good if I involved that bald-headed halfwit, he decided. KBO — it’s best to keep buggering on.