The Return

34

“Right, we’re dropping this case as of now!”

The chief of police removed a dry leaf from a fig plant. Van Veeteren sighed and contemplated the blue-suited outline of his boss against the lush green background. The hell you are! he thought.

Although it didn’t exactly come as a shock.

“We have more important things to do.”

Another leaf was selected for feeling and analyzing. The chief inspector averted his eyes. He turned his attention instead to a half-chewed toothpick and waited for what came next, but nothing did. Not right away, at least. Hiller pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and continued fumbling with the plants. Van Veeteren sighed again; the chief of police’s weakness for botanical pursuits was a constant and frequently discussed topic of conversation in the lower regions of the Maardam police station. There were a number of theories. Some considered the phenomenon to be an obvious substitute for a withered love life—elegant Mrs. Hiller was said to have put up the shutters after her fifth child—while another body of opinion supported the theory that the green panorama was in fact camouflage to conceal the secret microphones that served to record every word uttered in the somber and solemn building that served as police headquarters. Inspector Markovic in Missing Persons generally advocated the so-called lack-of-potty-training theory, but most people, including Van Veeteren, felt it sufficient to maintain that, damn it all, the chief of police would have been much better as a head gardener.

A head gardener in a suit? he thought, stuffing the toothpick into the gap between the seat and the armrest of the leather armchair he was sitting in. Why not? The more time Hiller devoted to his potted plants and the less time he spent attending to his police duties, the better.

Leave the monkey to do whatever it wants in the jungle, Reinhart always said. Life is easier that way.

But at this stage the monkey had decided to interfere. Van Veeteren scratched tentatively at his scar.

“Crap,” he said.

He had evidently been expected to say something, after all. Hiller spun round.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Do I need to spell it out?” Van Veeteren asked, and blew his nose. His cold had been coming and going all day. Perhaps he was allergic to some of these weird plants; perhaps it was just returning to reality after his time in hospital that had got the better of him.

Or a combination of the two. The chief of police sat down at his desk.

“We have a dead body,” he said. “With no head, no arms and legs…”

“Hands and feet,” said Van Veeteren.

“…nine months old by this time. After five weeks you have managed to establish that it might be Leopold Verhaven, convicted twice as a murderer of women. One of the country’s most notorious criminals. And that’s it.”

The chief inspector folded up his handkerchief.

“The only theory that makes sense,” Hiller went on, beginning to straighten out a yellow paper clip, “is that it’s an underworld killing. Somebody from his time in jail was waiting for him when he came out and killed him for some reason or other. Possibly after a fight, possibly by accident. Whatever, it is indefensible for us to waste any more time and money than we’ve already done. We have more important matters to deal with than underworld goings-on like this.”

“Crap,” said Van Veeteren again.

Hiller snapped the paper clip in two.

“Perhaps you could kindly elaborate a little on that comment.”

“By all means,” said Van Veeteren. “You’ve been leaned on, haven’t you?”

“What do you mean, leaned on?”

The chief of police raised his eyebrows and tried to look as if he didn’t understand. Van Veeteren snorted.

“You’re forgetting who you’re talking to,” he said. “Are you familiar with Klimke’s razor?”

“Klimke’s razor?”

This time the surprise was genuine.

“Yes. Simple guidelines for civilized and intelligent conversation.”

Hiller said nothing. Van Veeteren leaned back and closed his eyes for a few seconds before continuing. Might as well give him a salvo, he thought. It was some considerable time since he’d had one.

He cleared his throat and started shooting.

“The basic principle is balance. You can’t demand any more of the person you’re talking to than you are prepared to give of yourself. Decision makers, persons in positions of power and careerists in general usually like to give the impression of possessing a little democratic polish—God only knows why, although it goes down well with the media, of course. They like to give the impression that they are conducting a reasoned two-way discussion or a conversation, call it what you like, when what they are really doing is giving orders. It seems to give them a mysterious feeling of satisfaction; old Nazi bigwigs used to like carrying on in a similar fashion. A mild, understanding, paternal tone of voice as they sent people off to the execution squads; don’t take it personally, but…”

“That’s enough!” snarled the chief of police. “Explain what the hell you’re talking about! In plain language, if you don’t mind.”

Van Veeteren fished out another toothpick from his breast pocket.

“If you respond in plain language.”

“Of course,” said Hiller.

“All right. You only need to say yes or no, in fact. As I see it, this is how things stand: Leopold Verhaven has been murdered. For all those concerned—and I mean specifically the courts, the police, the general public and its deep-rooted respect for our more or less just legal system, and so on—for all those it would be damn convenient and satisfactory if we could decide that this case was an underworld killing and nothing more. Draw a line under it. Forget it and move on. Pay no more attention to this butchered old jailbird and concentrate instead on maintaining public order and other mythologies….”

“But?” interrupted Hiller.

“There’s a snag,” said Van Veeteren.

“What’s that?”

“It wasn’t an underworld killing.”

Hiller said nothing.

“Leopold Verhaven was murdered because he was innocent of both the murders he was found guilty of, and because he knew who the real killer was.”

Ten seconds passed. The bells started ringing in the Oudeskerk. Hiller clasped his hands on the leather writing pad on the desk in front of him.

“Can you prove that?” he asked.

“No,” said Van Veeteren. “Especially if we drop the case.”

Hiller started rubbing his thumbs together and tried to frown.

“You understand this as well as I do,” he said eventually. “In some circumstances…In some circumstances we simply have to consider the public good above all else; it’s as simple as that. In the unlikely event of your managing to winkle out a new murderer in this age-old business, who would get any satisfaction from that?”

“I would,” said Van Veeteren.

“You don’t count,” said Hiller. “Consider all the other interested parties and ask yourself if any of them would benefit. Let’s take them one by one. The murdered women? No! Verhaven? No! The police and the courts? No! The general public and the legal system? No!…”

“The murderer? No?” said Van Veeteren. “Don’t forget him. He would no doubt be the happiest of all if he escaped punishment. Three murders, and he doesn’t get arrested. Not bad. Not bad at all!”

Hiller put his glasses on. Leaned forward over his desk and allowed a few seconds to pass.

“There is no other murderer, only Verhaven,” he said eventually, emphatically. “The case is dropped on the grounds of lack of evidence and concrete proof. It’s dead.”

“You mean you are ordering me to allow a triple murderer to go free?”

The chief of police didn’t respond. Leaned back again in his chair. Van Veeteren heaved himself out of the armchair. Stood with his hands in his pockets, swaying back and forth.

Waited.

“Are you sure about what you’ve said?” Hiller asked after a while.

Van Veeteren shook his head.

“I suspect it,” he said. “I’m not sure yet.”

“And you also think you know who did it?”

Van Veeteren nodded and started to make his way slowly toward the door. The chief of police rubbed his thumbs together again and stared down at his desk.

“Wait a moment,” he said as Van Veeteren took hold of the door handle. “If you…er, if you really do unearth something that will stand up in court, that changes everything, of course. The worst thing we could do is to set something in motion that we can’t finish off. Put somebody in the dock, and he’s discharged…. You can imagine what that would mean, I hope. Fourteen hundred journalists, first of all, screeching on about corruption and miscarriage of justice in the Verhaven case, and then incompetence and abuse of power and God only knows what else, when we let the real murderer go because we haven’t got enough convincing evidence. I assume you are clear about that? You can surely imagine what a mess we’d be in?”

Van Veeteren said nothing. The chief of police sat for some time in silence, clenching his teeth and fiddling with his watch. Then he stood up and turned his back on the chief inspector.

“You’ll have to do it all yourself. As from today Münster joins Reinhart’s team. I don’t want to know about anything.”

“That suits me down to the ground,” said Van Veeteren. “I’m on sick leave, in any case.”

“Yours won’t be the head that rolls; I hope you can understand that as well. I don’t want any unnecessary trouble right now.”

“You can trust me,” said Van Veeteren. “You can go back to your potted plants. We must cultivate our garden.”

“Excuse me?” said the chief of police.

A waste of time, Van Veeteren thought as he left the room.