The G File

37

Van Veeteren went for a walk along the beach.

Shadows, he thought. I’m chasing shadows from the past.

Or one, at least. Why does it have to be so essential to come to terms with this sort of thing? he wondered. Why did these question marks insist on being removed, and these stains in the soul on being polished and rubbed out.

Polished or rubbed out. There was a difference, of course.

The devil only knows, he thought, lighting a cigarette. Sometimes things persist for no obvious reason. We have that sort of brain.

The sun was still low in the sky — he had woken up early and not wanted to disturb Bausen: just made himself a cup of coffee in the kitchen, then made his way towards the sea. He had come to the beach a couple of minutes before half past seven, bought a bottle of mineral water at the kiosk by the marina, and set off in an easterly direction. An hour out, an hour back, he decided. Movement is the key to clear thinking.

The beach looked just like he had remembered it. Or like he remembered so many other beaches he had walked along during his life. Sea, sky, earth. . A greyish-white band thirty metres wide running towards the headland just short of Orfmann’s Point. That was what it was called, wasn’t it? The restaurant on top of it, Fisherman’s Friend, projecting out dramatically over the edge; but the whole cliff and the high coastline beyond was enveloped by morning mist. . It was more like a dream than reality, as was the next bay on the other side towards Wilgersee. Birds were flying around over the sands and in towards land, a thin white cloud formed a veil around the sun, but the light was strong: he took his sunglasses out of his breast pocket and put them on. There was no doubt that it was going to be a hot day. Another one.

This is my last case, he suddenly thought. Definitely my final case.

In the activity that has dominated my life: chasing murderers.

He knew that this was true. Irrespective of the outcome. Irrespective of whether or not they managed to find G as a result of the faint trail left by Verlangen.

Irrespective of whether or not they achieved anything at all. Facts were facts. This was his last case.

At last, one might say. It felt almost like a sort of relief on a morning like this. He gazed out over the water. Lazy, choppy waves and hardly any wind at all. He recalled having depressing thoughts about this sea on his previous visit. He had gone for a walk along exactly the same stretch of beach, and interpreted the signs: winds blowing in the wrong direction, and lifeless waves. Natural forces reflecting a murder investigation that was getting nowhere, and similar shady goings-on. And doubts. His eternal doubts.

There was uncertainty in his mind now as well. Had he really done the right thing in coming up here again? It had been easy to make the decision to do so, but it had more to do with emotions than with reason. If such a split was possible in the real world.

Easy to make that decision down in Maardam, that is. Now that he was actually here he was aware of a sort of presumptuousness under his skin, itching away: both Münster and Rooth were already here to investigate the murder of Verlangen, and he knew from the past how capable Beate Moerk was.

So what was he doing here? Should he not have waited until they found traces of G at least? There was in fact nothing he could do that the investigative team couldn’t do just as well. Or better, if truth be told.

He had refrained from contacting them yesterday — simply allowed Bausen to inform them of his presence — and he knew that he wouldn’t be setting foot inside the police station today either. Unless somebody specifically invited him, that is.

A private detective again, he thought grimly. An old former detective chief inspector who turns up in the backwater after that private dick. Huh. In order to solve the only unresolved case of his career. Was that pathetic, or what?

Perhaps it was. There was definitely an element of that, he could feel it clearly on a morning like this: but what the hell! He couldn’t sleep, thanks to that damned Hennan!

And if they really do find him? he suddenly thought. If I actually come face to face with Jaan G. Hennan again? What would happen then? What is there to say that I would actually be victorious this time?

Not a lot, he decided. Apparently not a lot.

He paused and took off his shoes and socks. It’s like it was fifteen years ago, he thought. Exactly the same. . If we find G in Kaalbringen, that means he is guilty of Verlangen’s death. I know that. I shall sit there staring into the eyes of a murderer, knowing that I shall have to let him go free again. For the second time. It’s a damned awful thought, but there’s a lot to support that scenario, isn’t there?

He kicked a piece of discarded orange peel into the water. Hell’s bells, he thought, I ought to take matters into my own hands.

The thought came to him unbidden. He rejected it. Not this time, he decided. Not again. The moral escape door which involved stepping outside the law in order to ensure that justice is done — he had already opened it once, one single time, and afterwards he realized that it was an exit door one should only allow oneself to use once in a lifetime. If at all.

On that occasion the innocent man under pressure had been called Verhaven.

Now one of the victims was called Verlangen. Almost the same name, but that was a coincidence, of course. Nothing to interpret as a signpost, or an index finger.

He came to the old bunker from the Second World War: half sunk into the sand and half eaten by the teeth of time, it perched on the slope above the sands, gazing out over the eternal sea. He paused, opened the bottle of water and took several large swigs. Checked his watch and decided to continue. As far as the cliff, and perhaps a little bit further. How many times have I walked along beaches like this one? he wondered. If I laid them end to end, how far would they cover?

The next question came totally out of the blue.

How many years have I left to live?

Sixty-five plus what?

The answer was written in some book somewhere, of course — or perhaps in a musical score. In a hundred years from now somebody would be able to write his biography (the one he had never got round to sorting out) and state that when the Chief Inspector travelled up to Kaalbringen that autumn in a vain attempt to close down the G File, he had no more than two years left to live.

Or was it two months?

Rubbish, he then thought. Of that day and hour knoweth no man. . and so on. He started walking again, and made up his mind to settle that question off his own bat.

I shall continue walking for exactly half an hour, he decided. The number of people I pass during that time will be the number of years I have left.

Fair deal.

And when he stopped again after thirty minutes, close to the church in Wilgersee — he could glimpse the pointed spire over the top of the copse of beech trees between the church and the beach — he had not met another living soul.

Not a single one. So that was that then.

‘I think I’m on to something,’ said Probationer Stiller. ‘There’s a possibility, at least.’

‘Really?’ said Beate Moerk.

‘This Willumsen. He was living in the caravan next to Verlangen. He seems to have spoken to him quite a lot.’

‘Good,’ said Moerk. ‘What about?’

‘Not all that much, in fact — but he had asked about a camera shop.’

‘A camera shop?’

‘Yes.’

‘Verlangen?’

‘Yes. He had a camera, and evidently had a roll of film he wanted developing.’

‘So Verlangen had been taking photographs, had he?’

‘Yes.’

‘What of?’

Stiller shrugged.

‘I’ve no idea. He didn’t tell Willumsen that. He just wanted to know if there was a camera shop in Kaalbringen. . But it could have had something to do with G of course, and I thought that if we-’

‘Of course,’ said Moerk, interrupting him. ‘If Verlangen had taken pictures of something, it’s pretty obvious what they must have been of. What did Willumsen tell him? Was he able to be of help to Verlangen?’

Stiller nodded.

‘Yes, indeed. He referred him to FotoBlix in Hoistraat, and to that new shop in the shopping centre — I don’t know what it’s called, nor did Willumsen. .’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Moerk. ‘Overmaar’s or something, I think. But Verlangen intended to go to one of them and have his photos developed, right?’

‘I think so,’ said Stiller. ‘That’s what Willumsen said at least. But in any case, it should be worth following it up, don’t you think?’

‘Certainly,’ said Moerk. ‘They might recognize him. It’s a pity that developing is done by machines nowadays. . But it would help if we could find out what Verlangen had taken pictures of.’

‘You can say that again,’ said Stiller. ‘Shall we follow this up straight away, or. .’

‘Immediately,’ said Moerk.

‘There’s one thing I don’t understand,’ said Inspector Rooth.

‘Really?’ said Münster.

‘All that about proof. The suggestion that Verlangen had discovered some kind of proof about G’s guilt. How the hell could that be possible?’

‘Go on,’ said Münster.

‘I mean, it’s one thing if he happened to catch sight of G, by pure luck. Coincidence. I can also accept that he decided to start following him — or at least to keep a check on him somehow or other. He must have been a bit odd, this Verlangen character. But how could he possibly have caught on to something linked with a murder committed fifteen years ago? That’s what I can’t understand.’

Münster thought for a few seconds.

‘Nor can I,’ he admitted.

‘Do you think Verlangen spoke to him?’ said Rooth. ‘If we assume he did, Hennan might have said something — happened to say something — that made Verlangen catch on to something. I suppose that’s what might have happened. But there again, why should Hennan let slip something to somebody like Verlangen when he’s survived police interrogations and legal proceedings for such a long time? It’s beyond comprehension.’

‘I know,’ said Münster. ‘I’ve thought about that as well. I mean, G was found not guilty. There can’t very well have been any reason to start chasing him up simply because somebody happened to see him. It’s not illegal to leave the country and be away for a few years.’

‘Verlangen was presumably obsessed by him,’ said Rooth.

‘No doubt. Anyway, you’re quite right in this respect. How could Verlangen stumble on something he called proof? It’s very odd indeed.’

‘Maybe he’s the only one who would have thought that,’ suggested Rooth. ‘That it was so important. An idée fixe or something of that sort?’

‘But why should he end up getting shot through the head? If it wasn’t anything serious?’

‘Exactly,’ said Rooth. ‘It can’t have simply been imagination. I just don’t get it, as I said.’

‘No doubt we’ll find out,’ said Münster optimistically. ‘Anyway, this is Gerckstraat. What number was it?’

Rooth checked his notebook.

‘Thirteen,’ he said. ‘What do you think about this, then?’

‘It’s bound to be a breakthrough,’ said Münster. ‘He’s eighty-nine years old and has cataracts, but nevertheless he maintains that he has seen Verlangen in mysterious circumstances. We obviously have to investigate the claim more closely.’

‘Obviously,’ said Rooth. ‘But then we can get a bite to eat.’

Moerk and Stiller had a cup of coffee in the neo-functionalist cafe Kroek in the Passage shopping centre after their visit to the camera shop, which as far as they could make out didn’t have a name at all. There was no sign over the entrance in any case.

‘What do you think?’ asked Stiller.

‘I don’t know,’ said Moerk. ‘But if they don’t remember him I suppose it doesn’t matter if he was there or not. Let’s hope he went to FotoBlix instead — it’s a bit smaller and more personal.’

‘It’s not certain that he handed in a film for developing at all,’ Stiller pointed out. ‘He might have been shot before he got round to it, for instance.’

‘That’s very possible,’ said Moerk with a sigh. ‘And the camera was burnt up in the caravan fire. But that’s police work for you. Even if only one out of a thousand leads is any good, the other nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine have to be investigated as well.’

‘Yes, I’ve begun to realize that,’ said Stiller, and she had the impression that he blushed momentarily. ‘But surely it’s not necessary to wait until the very end before you find the right one, is it?’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Moerk, ‘although there’s nothing to prevent all thousand lottery tickets being losers either.’

‘Lousy odds,’ said Stiller with a smile.

‘The worst in the world,’ said Moerk, emptying her cup. ‘Shall we carry on?’

‘Of course,’ said Stiller.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ wondered Van Veeteren.

‘Vajrasana,’ replied Bausen, his voice sounding somewhat strained. ‘It stretches the whole of your back — a hell of a good exercise. Give me five minutes, and I’ll be with you.’

Van Veeteren left him on the floor and went out to sit on the patio. After a while Bausen appeared with two beers.

‘Lovely weather again today,’ he said, squinting up through the greenery. ‘You’re an early riser.’

‘It’s nagging away at me,’ said Van Veeteren.

‘That case, you mean?’

Van Veeteren nodded and began pouring out his beer.

‘I understand. And I suppose it’s a bit frustrating, being inactive.’

‘Awful,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I thought one would learn how to cope with the impatience over the years, but that’s obviously not the case.’

Bausen raised his glass and smiled wryly.

‘Not without help,’ he said.

‘Such as?’

‘You know that as well as I do. How did you spend this morning?’

Van Veeteren drank half his glass.

‘I went for a walk along the beach. To Wilgersee and back.’

‘That’s one way,’ said Bausen. ‘Yoga’s another. . It hangs your soul in the right places inside your body, as it were. I’ll teach you a few exercises this evening, if you’ve nothing against it?’

Van Veeteren nodded. They sat in silence for a while.

‘Anyway,’ said Bausen eventually. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t have anything special to do today either. Shall we have a game while we’re waiting for them to contact us?’

‘By all means,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘So you think they’ll do that?’

‘Of course,’ said Bausen confidently, getting out the chess-board. ‘Let them do the spadework, then we can move in when they get stuck. If you’ve been waiting for fifteen years, I assume you can hang on for a few more days.’

‘Maybe,’ said Van Veeteren, beginning to set up the pieces. ‘Although there’s a bit of guilt to cope with as well.’

‘Guilt?’

‘Yes. I have a slightly annoying feeling that it ought to have been me lying out there in the mushroom woods with a bullet hole through my skull. Not that poor devil Verlangen.’

Bausen contemplated him thoughtfully for a few seconds.

‘I understand what you’re saying,’ he said. ‘But I suggest we ignore that aspect for now. It’s your move. . It would be fun if you did a Scandinavian for a change.’

‘A Scandinavian opening?’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Why not?’