The Return

20

“Quite a few stories were circulating about him,” said Bernard Moltke, lighting another cigarette.

“You don’t say,” said deBries. “What kind of stories?”

“Various kinds. It’s hard to tell which ones dated from before Beatrice and which ones came afterward. Which ones are authentic, if you like. It was mainly during the trial that gossip was rife. We’d never met up so much in the village as we did during those months. Afterward, things quieted down, somehow. As if it were all over. Which it no doubt was.”

“Can you give us an example of the kind of story you are talking about?” asked Moreno. “Preferably an authentic one.”

Bernard Moltke thought for a moment.

“The one about the cat,” he said. “I certainly heard that one much earlier, in any case. They say he strangled a cat with his bare hands.”

DeBries could feel a shudder shooting down his spine, and he saw Constable Moreno give a start.

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Moltke. “But anyway, he’s supposed to have wrung its neck. When he was ten or twelve years old.”

“Ugh,” said Moreno.

“Yes. Maybe somebody dared him to do it. I have an idea that was it.”

“Was that supposed to be a sufficient reason?”

“Don’t ask me,” said Moltke. “Lots of people say that’s what he was like.”

“What do you have to say about Beatrice Holden, then?”

Moltke drew deeply on his cigarette, seemingly searching through his memory.

“A damned good-looking woman,” he said. “A bit on the wild side, that’s true, but Good Lord…Ah well. Same color hair as you, miss.”

He winked at Moreno, who remained stony faced, to deBries’s great satisfaction.

“Why was she in with Verhaven, then?” she asked instead. “He can’t have been very attractive to women, surely?”

“Don’t say that,” protested Moltke, poking his index finger into his double chins. “Don’t say that. You never know what’s going on inside a woman. Isn’t that right, Inspector?”

“Absolutely,” said deBries.

“What about Marlene?” asked Moreno, totally unmoved. “The same type of thoroughbred, I take it?”

Moltke burst out laughing, but soon turned serious.

“You bet your sweet life she was,” he said. “A bit older, that’s all. A goddamned scandal that he killed the pair of them.”

“You saw Marlene Nietsch as well, then?” asked deBries.

“Only the once. They hadn’t met all that much before…it was all over.”

“I see,” said deBries. “I understand you were a witness at the first trial?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What was your testimony about?”

Moltke thought for a while.

“I’m damned if I know,” he said. “I was up at Verhaven’s quite a bit around the time it happened, that’s all really. Helped him with the lighting inside the chicken sheds. He was experimenting with daily rhythms and there was some wiring job he wasn’t up to.”

“So that’s it,” said deBries. “Were you there on the Saturday she disappeared? Well, if you believe what he said, that is.”

Moltke nodded solemnly.

“Yes, I put in a few hours that Saturday. Finished about one, roughly. I was the last person to see her alive, I suppose. Apart from the murderer, of course.”

“The murderer?” said Moreno. “You mean Verhaven?”

“Yes,” said Moltke. “I suppose I do.”

“You don’t sound too convinced,” said deBries.

A brief silence again.

“Oh yes,” he said. “I’ve become convinced as the years have passed. After the Marlene murder, and then…”

“But you were a witness for the defense at the trial, isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“What did you have to say?”

“Well,” said Moltke. He shook another cigarette from the pack on the table in front of him, but didn’t light it. “I worked for him the following week as well. Monday to Thursday, and they thought I would have noticed something if there was anything wrong.”

“And did you?”

“No. He was exactly the same as usual.”

“As usual?” said Moreno. “Surely he must have reacted to her disappearance?”

“No. He said she’d gone off somewhere, but he didn’t know where.”

“Didn’t you think that was odd?”

Moltke shrugged.

“People were asking me that ten times a day around then. I can’t remember what I thought, but I don’t suppose I thought much about it. They were a bit unusual, both him and Beatrice. Everybody knew that, and it was hardly surprising that she went off for a few days.”

Nobody spoke for a few seconds. Moltke lit his cigarette. DeBries stubbed his out.

“That Saturday, the last time you saw her. What was she like?” Moreno asked.

“Same as usual, her as well,” said Moltke without hesitation. “A touch more sulky, perhaps. They’d been fighting the previous week. She still had a bit of a bruise under one eye, but apart from that there was nothing special. I didn’t see much of her, come to that. She called in at the chicken shed for a little chat, that’s all. On her way back from the village.”

“What time was that?”

“Twelve, round about.”

“And you went home at about one?”

“Yes. A minute or two past.”

“What did you talk about?”

“The weather and the wind. Nothing special. She offered me coffee, but I was about to pack in and so I said no thank you.”

“Nothing else?”

“No.”

“And she was still there when you left?”

“Of course. Standing in the kitchen, busy with something or other. I just put my head round the door and wished her a good weekend.”

DeBries nodded.

“But when you gave your testimony, if I can come back to that, you didn’t think Verhaven was guilty?”

Moltke drew deeply on his cigarette and exhaled before replying.

“No,” he said. “I suppose I didn’t, in fact.”

“And you still don’t?” asked deBries. “In fact?”

“I don’t know. It’s easier to live in this village if you think it was him, if you follow me. Is he really dead, like they say?”

“Who do you mean by they?”

“The folks in the village, of course.”

“Yes,” said deBries. “He’s dead.”

“Ah well,” said Moltke with a sigh. “It comes to us all eventually.”

“What do we do now?” wondered Moreno. “Time to go back to town, perhaps?”

DeBries checked his watch.

“Half past six. Shouldn’t we take a look at the house, seeing as we’re here? You’ve never been there.”

“OK,” said Moreno. “I have a date at nine, though, and I’d like to have time to powder my nose first.”

“You’d be all right for me with no powder at all,” said deBries.

“Thank you,” said Moreno. “It’s good to know that you don’t ask too much of people.”

“You learn to make the most of whatever you get,” said deBries.

“A gloomy place,” she said as they were driving back through the trees. “Although it would have looked better in those days, no doubt.”

“Sure,” said deBries. “It’s been standing empty for twelve or thirteen years. That leaves its mark…. What’s all this! Have we time for another little chat?”

“A short one,” said Moreno.

DeBries slowed down and stopped beside a man bending down by the side of the road, painting a fence.

“Good evening,” said deBries through the open window. “Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?”

The man straightened his back.

“Good evening,” he said. “Please do. It will be a pleasure to stand upright for a bit.”

DeBries and Moreno got out of the car and shook hands. Claus Czermak had only been living in the blue house for just over a year, it transpired, and he was also too young to have any personal memories of the Verhaven trials. But it was always worthwhile spending a few minutes, just in case.

“We moved here when we had our third son,” he said, gesturing toward the house and garden, where a couple of toddlers were steering a pedal car down a wheelchair ramp built into the steps leading up to the front door. “We thought it was a bit stifling in town. The country air and all that, you know…”

Moreno nodded.

“You don’t work here in the village?”

Czermak shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I have a post at the university. History, the Middle Ages and Byzantium.”

“I see. We’re interested in Leopold Verhaven and his house up there in the forest,” said deBries. “You are his nearest neighbors, so to speak. You and the people opposite…”

“The Wilkersons, yes. We had gathered there was something going on.”

“Exactly,” said deBries. “But I don’t suppose you have anything that could be of interest to us?”

Czermak shook his head.

“I wouldn’t have thought so. We were still on vacation when he came back here last August. We’ve only heard people talking about him. What’s happened?”

“He’s dead,” said deBries. “Mysterious circumstances. But don’t call the newspapers tonight, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh dear,” said Czermak. “No, you have my word on that.”

“Thank you for your efforts today,” said deBries as he pulled up outside Constable Moreno’s apartment in Keymer Plejn. “A pity you don’t have time for a glass of something. It’s often productive to sit down in peace and quiet for a while and chew over the impressions we’ve had.”

“Sorry about that,” said Moreno. “I promise to plan things a bit better next time. Aren’t you married, by the way?”

“A little bit,” deBries admitted.

“I thought so. Goodnight!”

She scrambled out of the car. Slammed the door and waved to him from the sidewalk. DeBries sat there for a while, watching her. It’s Saturday tomorrow, he thought. A day off. Damn!