The Return

12

“What do you think?” Rooth asked.

Münster shrugged.

“I don’t know. But he’s probably our man. We’ll have to wait and see what the forensic officers say.”

“It’s not exactly a cheerful place.”

“No. That’s certainly what strikes you, somehow. Shall we take a walk to the village? We’re not doing any good here. We’ll have to talk to the neighbors sooner or later anyway.”

Rooth nodded and they set off in silence down the winding path through the woods. After a few hundred yards the countryside opened up, with low farmhouses on each side, and only a stone’s throw farther on was the village of Kaustin. They continued as far as the church and the main road.

“How many souls live in this place, do you know?” asked Rooth.

Münster glanced at the churchyard, but assumed the question referred to those who had not yet been laid to rest.

“A couple of hundred, I would guess. There’s a store and a school, in any case.”

He pointed down the road ahead of them.

“What do you reckon?” said Rooth. “Shall we do a bit of sounding out?”

“Might as well,” said Münster. “If the shopkeeper doesn’t know anything, nobody else will.”

There were two old ladies sitting on chairs inside the store, and it was obvious to Münster that they had no intention of leaving. While Rooth took a careful look at the range of chocolate bars and bags of candy, he steered the slimly built shopkeeper into the storeroom. Perhaps that was unnecessary. Their arrival in the village, five or six cars one after the other on a forest track that was normally quiet, could hardly have passed unnoticed. Even so, there was plenty of reason to keep in the background as far as possible. The link was not yet confirmed, when all was said and done.

“My name’s Münster,” he said, producing his ID.

“Hoorne. Janis Hoorne,” said the shopkeeper with a nervous smile.

Münster decided to get straight to the point.

“Do you know who owns that house in the forest up there? The turnoff by the church, I mean.”

The man nodded.

“Who, then?”

“It’s Verhaven’s.”

His voice is hoarse, Münster thought, his eyes shifty. What’s he worried about?

“Have you had this store for long?”

“Thirty years. My father ran it before I did.”

“You know the story, then?”

He nodded again. Münster waited for a few seconds.

“Has something happened?”

“We don’t know yet,” Münster explained. “Possibly. Have you noticed anything?”

“No…no, what should I have noticed?”

His nervousness was like an aura around him, but there might be a good reason for that. Münster eyed him up and down before continuing.

“Leopold Verhaven was released from prison in August last year. The twenty-fourth, to be exact. We think he came back to his house round about then. Do you know anything about that?”

The man hesitated, rubbing his thumbs nervously against his index fingers.

“You must know about most of what goes on here in Kaustin, surely?”

“Yes…”

“Well? Do you know if he came back here? Then, in August, or at some other time?”

“They say…”

“Yes?”

“Somebody saw him round about that time, yes.”

He produced a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his upper lip.

“When was that?”

“Er, one day in August last year.”

“But there’s been no sign of him since then?”

“Not that I know of.”

“So it was just one day, is that right? He was seen on one or possibly several occasions, was he?”

“I don’t know. I think so.”

“By whom?”

“Excuse me?”

“Who saw him?”

“Maertens, if I remember rightly…Maybe Mrs. Wilkerson as well, I can’t really remember.”

Münster made notes.

“And where can I find Maertens and Mrs. Wilkerson?”

“Maertens lives with the Niedermanns, the other side of the school, but he works in the churchyard. You’re bound to find him there now, if you…”

He didn’t know how to go on.

“And Mrs. Wilkerson?”

The shopkeeper coughed and popped a couple of tablets into his mouth.

“She lives in the house just before you get to the forest. On the right-hand side. On the way up to Verhaven’s, that is.”

Münster nodded and closed his notebook. As they were leaving the store Hoorne plucked up enough courage to ask a question.

“Has he done it again?”

It was hardly more than a whisper. Münster shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Hardly.”

“Would you like a piece?”

Rooth held out a half-eaten bar of chocolate.

“No thank you,” said Münster. “Did you interrogate the old ladies?”

“Hmm,” said Rooth, his mouth full. “Shrewd characters. Refused to open their false teeth even an eighth of an inch unless they had a lawyer present. Where are we headed for now?”

“The church. The verger is supposed to have seen him.”

“Good,” said Rooth.

Maertens was busy digging a grave as Münster and Rooth approached, and Münster was reminded how he had once played a very immature Horatio while at school. He smiled briefly at the thought. Perhaps what the enthusiastic little drama teacher had claimed really was true, and that Hamlet was a play that contained something for every single phase of one’s life.

He didn’t dare to develop the thought any further and never asked whose grave it was.

“Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?” Rooth said instead. “You are Mr. Maertens, aren’t you?”

The powerfully built man took off his cap and slowly straightened his back.

“I am indeed that gentleman,” he said. “Always delighted to assist the police.”

“Hmm,” said Münster. “It’s about Leopold Verhaven. We wonder if you’ve seen him around lately?”

“Lately? What do you mean by lately?”

“The last year or so,” said Rooth.

“I saw him when he came back last summer…. Let’s see now, that would have been August, I think. But he hasn’t been around here since then.”

“Tell us about it,” said Münster.

Mr. Maertens replaced his headgear and clambered out of the as-yet shallow grave.

“Well,” he began, “it was just the once. I was raking the gravel here in the churchyard. He came by taxi, got out just outside the gate. Er, then he started walking up the hill toward the woods. Went home, in other words.”

“When exactly was it?” Rooth asked.

Maertens thought for a moment.

“August, as I said. End of the month, if I remember rightly.”

“And that’s the only time you saw him?”

“Just the once, yes. God only knows where he went after that. They’d let him out again, of course. We talked about it in the village, it seemed to be about the right time, and so…”

“Do you know if anybody else saw him?”

He nodded.

“Mrs. Wilkerson. Her husband as well, I think. They live up there.”

He pointed to the grayish white house on the edge of the forest.

“Thank you,” said Rooth. “We might need to come back with more questions.”

“What’s he done now?” said Maertens.

“Nothing,” said Münster. “Did you know him?”

Maertens scratched the back of his head.

“In the old days, I suppose. He sort of dropped out of circulation.”

“I’d more or less gathered that,” said Rooth.

The Wilkersons appeared to have been expecting them, and that probably wasn’t surprising. The road was only about ten yards from the kitchen table where Mr. Wilkerson was now sitting with a cup of coffee and a tray of cookies in front of him, trying to look as if he was reading the newspaper. His wife produced two extra cups, and Münster and Rooth sat down.

“Thank you,” Rooth said. “I’m looking forward to this.”

“I’ve retired,” said the man, somewhat abruptly. “It’s my son who runs the farm nowadays. My back couldn’t cope, I’m afraid.”

“Backs always cause lots of trouble,” Rooth said.

“Lots.”

“Anyway,” said Münster, “we’d like to ask you a few little questions, if we may. About Leopold Verhaven.”

“Fire away,” said Mrs. Wilkerson, sitting down beside her husband. She slid the tray of cookies toward them.

“We understand he came back here in August last year,” said Rooth, taking a cookie.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Wilkerson. “I saw him coming. Going past.”

She pointed at the road.

“Can you tell us exactly what you saw?” said Münster.

She took a sip of coffee.

“Well, I saw him walking up the hill, that’s all there was to it. I didn’t recognize him at first, but then I saw….”

“You’re quite certain?”

“Who else could it have been?”

“I suppose there can’t be many people using this track?” said Rooth, taking another cookie.

“Hardly a soul,” said Mr. Wilkerson. “Only the Czermaks opposite, but there’s hardly ever anybody up in the forest.”

“Are there any other houses?” Münster wondered.

“No,” said Wilkerson. “The track peters out fifty yards or so past Verhaven’s. I suppose we might get the occasional hunting party shooting hares or pheasants, but that’s not very often.”

“Did you see him as well, Mr. Wilkerson?”

Mrs. Wilkerson nodded.

“I shouted to him, of course. Yes, we both saw him all right. The twenty-fourth of August it was. Three o’clock, maybe just after. He had a suitcase and a plastic carrier bag, that’s all. He looked just like he always did. I must say I thought he’d have changed more than he had.”

“Really?” said Rooth. “Then what?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you must have seen him several times?”

“No,” said Wilkerson emphatically. “We didn’t.”

Rooth took another cookie and chewed thoughtfully.

“What you are saying,” said Münster, “is that you saw Leopold Verhaven walking past here on August twenty-fourth last year—the same day that he was released from prison—but that you haven’t seen him since?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you think that’s odd?”

Mrs. Wilkerson pursed her lips.

“There’s a lot about Leopold Verhaven that’s odd,” she said. “Don’t you agree? What’s happened?”

“We don’t know yet,” said Rooth. “Was there anybody in the village who mixed with him at all?”

“No,” said Wilkerson. “Nobody.”

“You must have gathered that,” said his wife.

Yes, I’ve started to, thought Münster. He was beginning to feel cooped up in this over-elaborately furnished and decorated little kitchen, and was coming around to the view that it would probably be best to save other questions for a later occasion. Until they had a bit of flesh on the skeleton, as it were. At the very least until they were certain that Leopold Verhaven really was their man.

Their dead body. It would be damned annoying if he suddenly crawled out from under a stone and disproved his own demise, as it were.

Although Münster was becoming more and more convinced for every hour that passed. It couldn’t very well be anybody else. There are signs and there are signs, as Van Veeteren always said.

Rooth seemed to have read his thoughts. And in any case, the tray of cookies was empty.

“We might have to come back to you,” he said. “Many thanks for the coffee.”

“It’s a pleasure,” said Mrs. Wilkerson.

As they were leaving, Münster asked a question out of nowhere.

“We spoke to the storekeeper,” he said. “He seemed to be…uncomfortable, to say the least. Have you any idea why?”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Wilkerson curtly. “Beatrice was his cousin, after all.”

“Beatrice,” said Rooth as they were walking back to the house. “She was the first one. Nineteen sixty-two, was it?”

“Yes,” said Münster. “Beatrice in 1962 and Marlene in 1981. Nearly twenty years between them. It’s a very peculiar story, this one is—have you realized that?”

“I know,” said Rooth. “I had the impression that it was all cut and dried, but I have to say that I’m not so sure about that now.”

“What do you mean by that, Inspector?” asked Münster.

“Nothing,” said Rooth. “Let’s see what the technical guys have come up with. Kluisters and Berben have been hard at work, by the looks of things.”