The Return

31

At first sight, for the first tenth of a second after opening the door, he had no idea where he was. The thought that he might have got the wrong room after twelve long days of absence did occur to him, but then he realized that it was the same old office as usual. Perhaps it was the strong afternoon sun slanting in through the dirty windows that confused him. The whole of the far wall, behind the desk, was bathed in generous but blinding sunlight. Dust was dancing. It was as hot as in an oven.

He opened the window. Lowered the blinds and succeeded in protecting himself to some extent from the early summer. When he looked round, he found that the changes were not in fact as great as he had at first thought.

There were three of them, to be precise.

First of all, somebody had tidied up his desk. All his papers were in neat piles instead of being splayed out like a fan. Not a bad idea, he could see that immediately. Odd that it had never occurred to him before.

In the second place, a vase with yellow and mauve flowers had been placed next to his telephone. I am obviously an outstandingly popular and well-liked person, Van Veeteren thought. Hard but fair under the rough surface.

In the third and last place, he had received a new desk chair. It was turquoise in color; he thought he could recall the shade from a coat Renate had once bought while on a catastrophic holiday in France. Provence blue, if he remembered rightly, but that was irrelevant. It had soft armrests in any case—the chair, that is—a curved back and headrest, and was vaguely reminiscent of seats in the first-class compartments of trains in one of the neighboring countries, he couldn’t remember which.

He sat down tentatively. The seat was just as soft as the armrests. He sank back into the backrest and noticed that under the seat was a selection of wheels and levers that evidently enabled him to adjust every possible feature—height, angle, headrest angle, elasticity coefficient, you name it. On the desk in front of him was a brochure in full color with precise instructions in eight languages.

Wow! Van Veeteren thought and began fiddling with the controls in accordance with the instructions. I can snooze the time away in this chair until they start paying my pension.

Twenty minutes later he had finished, and just as he had started wondering how he could most easily and smartly procure a beer, the duty operator rang to inform him that a lady was in reception, asking for Van Veeteren.

“Send her up,” he said. “I’ll meet her by the elevator.”

It was Saturday, and the building was practically empty. He would prefer to avoid the blunder made by Reinhart a year or so ago when his instructions resulted in a prospective narc with a bad sense of direction ending up fast asleep on the sofa in the chief of police’s office. Hiller himself had discovered the intruder early on Monday morning, and not even Reinhart’s tactful reminder that it was possible to lock doors with the aid of something known as a key had persuaded the authorities that there were extenuating circumstances.

“Your name is Elena Klimenska, is that right?” he began when she had settled down on the visitor’s chair.

“Yes.”

She was a rather elegant woman, he had to admit. Somewhere between forty and fifty, he would guess, with dark, dyed hair and strong features, discreetly brought out by carefully applied makeup and sophisticated perfume. As far as he could judge, that is.

“I am Detective Chief Inspector Van Veeteren,” he said. “As I explained, it’s to do with your testimony in connection with the trial of Leopold Verhaven here in Maardam in November 1981.”

“So I gather,” she said, folding her hands over her black patent-leather purse.

“Can you tell me what your testimony comprised?”

“Er…I don’t understand what you mean.”

She hesitated. Van Veeteren took a toothpick from his breast pocket and studied it carefully before making a cautious attempt to adjust the angle of his chair backward. Hmm, not bad, he thought. This must be the perfect chair for interrogations.

Although the victim should ideally be sitting on a three-legged stool. Or a wooden packing case.

“Well?” he said.

“My testimony? Er, the thing is, I happened to be walking past and I saw them, behind the Covered Market.”

“Saw who?”

“Him and her, of course. Verhaven and that woman he murdered…Marlene Nietsch.”

“Where did you pass?”

“Excuse me?”

“You said you happened to be walking past. I would like to know where you were when you saw them.”

She cleared her throat.

“I was walking on the sidewalk along Zwille. I saw them a short way up Kreugerlaan….”

“How did you know it was them?”

“I recognized them, of course.”

“Before or after?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you know it was Leopold Verhaven and Marlene Nietsch when you saw them, or did it dawn on you afterward?”

“Afterward, of course.”

“You weren’t acquainted with either of them?”

“Certainly not.”

“How far away were you?”

“Twenty yards.”

“Twenty?”

“Yes, twenty.”

“How do you know?”

“The police measured the distance.”

“What were they wearing?”

“He was in a blue shirt and jeans. She had on a brown jacket and a black skirt.”

“Not particularly conspicuous clothes.”

“No. Why should they be conspicuous?”

“Because it’s easier to recognize people if there’s something special about their appearance. Were there any special details?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“How did you come into contact with the legal authorities?”

“There was an appeal for witnesses in the newspapers.”

“I see. And so you responded to that appeal?”

“I thought it was my duty to do so.”

“How much time had passed by then? Roughly.”

“A month. Six weeks, perhaps.”

Van Veeteren snapped the toothpick.

“You’re saying that you could remember two people standing talking beside a van after…six weeks?”

“Yes.”

“People you didn’t know?”

“Of course.”

“Had you any special reason for noticing them and remembering them?”

“Er, no.”

“What time was it?”

“Excuse me?”

“What time was it when you were walking along Zwille and happened to see them?”

“Seven or eight minutes to ten.”

“How do you know?”

“Er, that’s the time it was. What’s so remarkable about that?”

“Did you check the time?”

“No.”

“Where were you going? Did you have an appointment to keep or something of that sort?”

“I was out shopping.”

“I see.”

He paused and leaned back so far that his feet left the floor. For a brief moment he felt almost weightless.

Is there a lever to pull that will bring me back into the atmosphere? he wondered, but he soon regained control of his module.

“Mrs. Klimenska,” he said when he had made contact with both his desk and the floor once more. “I would like you to explain this to me, as slowly and clearly as you can. I sometimes find it a bit hard to understand things. A man has been found guilty of first-degree murder on the basis of your evidence. He has been in prison for twelve years. Twelve years! If you hadn’t come forward, it is very likely that he would have been cleared. Will you please tell me how the hell you can be certain that you saw Leopold Verhaven and Marlene Nietsch standing talking in Kreugerlaan at seven and a half minutes to ten on Friday, September the eleventh, 1981! How?”

Elena Klimenska sat up straight and met his gaze without the slightest hesitation.

“Because I saw them,” she said. “As far as the time is concerned, that’s the only possibility. He drove away from there at ten o’clock, and they were together at the corner at twelve minutes to.”

“So they weren’t actually at the corner when you saw them?”

“Of course not.”

“Bravo, Mrs. Klimenska. You know your stuff very well, I must say. But then, it’s only thirteen years ago, after all.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Was it the police or the prosecutor who helped you with the timing?”

“Both of them, of course. Why…”

“Thank you,” Van Veeteren interrupted. “That’s enough. Just one more question. Was there any other witness who could confirm your evidence?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Somebody you had just left, for instance. Or bumped into five minutes later, perhaps?”

“No. How would that have helped?”

Van Veeteren didn’t answer. He drummed quietly on the edge of his desk instead, gazing out through a gap in the blinds at the sunshine bathing the warm streets. Elena Klimenska adjusted a pleat in her grayish blue dress, but didn’t change her expression.

“Do you usually sleep soundly at night, Mrs. Klimenska?”

Her mouth narrowed to form a thin line. He could see that she’d had enough. That she presumably had no intention of answering any more questions or insinuations.

“I ask because I’m curious,” he said. “It’s part of my job to play the psychologist now and again. If it had been me, for instance, who had been responsible for getting another human being locked up for twelve years on the basis of totally unfounded and invented evidence, I would probably not feel too good about it. You know, the conscience thing, and all that…”

She stood up.

“I’ve had enough of your…”

“But maybe you had some special reason?”

“What the…”

“For getting him locked up, I mean. That would explain it.”

“Good-bye, Chief Inspector. You can be sure the chief of police is going to hear of this!”

She turned on her heel and managed three paces toward the door.

“You lying bitch,” he hissed.

She stopped dead.

“What did you say?”

“I merely wished you a pleasant afternoon. Can you find your own way out, or would you like me to escort you?”

Two seconds later he was alone again, but he could hear her heels tapping in irritation all the way to the elevator.

Ah well, he thought, pulling the weightlessness lever. That’s the way to treat ’em.