The Return

25

“This village, then?” said Münster. “What do you think about it?”

“Introverted,” said deBries. “Constable Moreno and I have spent two whole days there now, and we both agree that it’s your archetypal rural backwater.”

“I was born in a place very similar to it,” said Moreno. “Bossenwühle, just outside Rheinau. I have to say that I recognize the atmosphere. Everybody knows everybody else. Everybody knows what everybody else is up to. No integrity. You are who you are; it’s best to be on your guard and lie low, never step out of line, as it were. It’s hard to put your finger on it, but no doubt you recognize the syndrome?”

“Of course,” said Münster. “I was also born out in the sticks. It’s OK while you’re a kid, but when you’re grown up, the social network sometimes feels like barbed wire. Are you saying there’s nothing extra as far as Kaustin’s concerned? Something that would distinguish it from other similar places in some way?”

Moreno hesitated.

“Hmm,” she said, biting her lower lip. “I don’t know. The shadow of Verhaven is lurking over them all, but that’s scarcely surprising. I gather a delegation of locals actually wanted to change the place’s name after the second murder.”

“Change its name?” said Rooth.

“Yes. They wanted to get rid of the name Kaustin. Presumably they thought everybody associated it with Verhaven and the trials. They felt they were living in a village known only for the murders. There was a petition you could sign in the village shop, but it all petered out in the end.”

“I suppose you can understand them,” said Münster. “Anyway, can you be a bit more specific? What have you managed to find out?”

“Well,” said deBries, “we’ve spoken to about twenty people, most of them old, who’ve lived there all their lives and remembered both cases very clearly. There’s not much in the way of movement in and out of the village, and the population is only some six hundred inhabitants in all. The setting is very pretty, no arguing with that. A lake and some woodland and some open countryside, that kind of thing.”

“Many people were unwilling to talk about Verhaven,” said Moreno. “They seemed to want to forget all about it, as if it were something shameful for everybody who lives there. Maybe it is, in a way.”

“Isn’t there more than that?” interrupted Reinhart.

“Meaning what?” said deBries.

Reinhart was poking around with a match in the bowl of his pipe.

“Did you get the feeling that they were…hiding something, so to speak? Damn it all, surely I don’t need to spell it out? It’s a matter of mood, pure and simple, that’s all. A woman ought to notice it anyway.”

“Thank you,” said deBries.

For God’s sake, don’t start fighting now, Münster thought. I don’t want to have to spend ages editing the tape.

“Maybe,” said Moreno after a little pause. “But it’s only a very faint suspicion at most. Perhaps they all have a skeleton or two in their cupboard—metaphorically speaking, naturally—and they’re a bit scared of one another. That’s another aspect of the syndrome, isn’t it? No, I don’t know.”

Münster sighed.

“But you must have put them under a little bit of pressure, surely?”

“Obviously,” said deBries. “The butcher’s a bit of a shady type, for instance. He has at least two mistresses in the village. Or has had, rather. Perhaps he had it off with Beatrice Holden now and again, before she made a pitch at Verhaven, but that’s not certain. She was a bit of a dolly, it seems. Not too difficult to persuade.”

“Her relationship with Verhaven was a stormy one, if I’m not much mistaken?” said Reinhart.

“You can say that again,” said Moreno. “A bit of a cat and dog relationship, apparently. Sparks would fly now and then. Only a week before she was murdered, she knocked on the door of her neighbors’ house in the middle of the night, looking for refuge. He’d given her a good beating, evidently. She was naked, just wrapped up in a blanket.”

“Did they let her in?”

“They certainly did. They let her sleep on a sofa. She was pretty drunk, but insisted she was going to report Verhaven to the police the next day. Grievous bodily harm, that kind of thing.”

“But when she woke up the next morning,” said deBries, “she just wrapped the blanket around her and went back to him.”

“For Christ’s sake!” said Reinhart. “The faded embers of second thoughts.”

“Frailty, thy name is woman,” said Moreno, with a quick smile.

“Hmm,” said Münster. “Anything else of interest?”

“Quite a bit about his childhood and school days,” said Moreno. “The former janitor at the village school is still alive. He’s nearly ninety, but unusually clear in the head and not unwilling to talk. Verhaven was a bit of an odd bird from the start, it appears. A loner. Introverted. But strong. His fellow pupils respected him. There’s plenty of evidence for that.”

Münster nodded.

“There were a few who thought he was innocent,” said deBries. “Of the Beatrice murder, at least. But that’s no longer an opinion people are willing to shout in the streets.”

“Why not?” asked Jung.

“Same boat,” muttered Reinhart.

“Yes, that’s about it,” said deBries. “Standing in the village shop in Kaustin and maintaining that Verhaven is innocent is a bit like going to Tehran and claiming that the ayatollah has shit his trousers.”

“Ayatollahs don’t wear trousers,” said Jung. “They wear those black dresses, whatever they’re called.”

“All right, all right,” said Münster.

“Maintaining that Verhaven is innocent implies something else as well,” said Reinhart.

“What?” wondered Rooth.

“You’re accusing somebody else in the village of murder.”

Nobody spoke, and Münster could see exactly how long it took for Reinhart’s words to sink into each one of them.

“But that’s not certain,” said Rooth.

“No,” said Reinhart. “Of course it’s not certain that there’s another murderer in the village, but it’s shit-hot certain that the thought will occur to people. Suspicion. If you keep your mouth shut, you’re not going to put your foot in it.”

“Very true,” said Moreno.

“Well,” said Münster when he had switched off the tape recorder and the others had left them alone. “What do you think?”

“I don’t think anything,” sighed Rooth. “Or rather, I think anything’s possible. I’d give a lot for a couple of hot tips at this stage. What the hell should we be concentrating on?”

“I don’t know,” said Münster. “I have the feeling Hiller will want to take several officers off the case. It’ll probably be just you and me from now on. And the boss, of course.”

He nodded toward the tape recorder.

“Unless we come across something vital,” said Rooth.

“Unless the newspapers decide to make a meal of it, more likely,” said Münster. “They’ll have the story tomorrow, in any case. Maybe that’s just as well. We need all the help we can get.”

“What do you really think yourself?” said Rooth before they went their separate ways in the underground car park. “Do you really think there’s a triple murderer on the loose in this backwater? That sounds to me like a damn awful film.”

“It wouldn’t be a better film even if the locals knew who it is,” said Münster. “No, I think I’d switch it off right away.”

Rooth pondered.

“Maybe we are sort of sitting in a movie theater, as well,” he said. “It can be damn hard getting out if you’re stuck in the middle of a row.”

“Dead right,” said Münster.

They stood in silence for a while.

“How about a beer?” said Roth.

Münster checked his watch.

“No time,” he said. “I have to visit the patient. They won’t let me in after eight.”

“Pity,” said Rooth, and shrugged. “Pass on greetings. I reckon we could do with him around.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Münster.

Why do I keep lying? Münster asked himself as he sat in the car on the way to his suburb. Why couldn’t I have simply told him straight up that I wanted to go home to Synn and the kids? Why did I have to drag in the chief inspector?

Van Veeteren would get his tape after breakfast the next morning, as they had agreed. But if he didn’t want to offend Rooth by turning down his offer of a drink, why should some old cop recovering from an operation be a better excuse than his wife and children?

A good question, no doubt about it.

He decided to think about something else instead.