The Return

42

The rain had been with him for most of the journey, but it started to ease off as he approached the coast. The setting sun broke through the clouds on the horizon, shooting jagged shafts of light over the choppy sea. The air smelled salt-laden and fresh when he got out of the car, and he paused for a few seconds to savor deep breaths of it. Seagulls were gliding over the water, filling the bay with their self-assured, drawn-out screams.

The sea, he thought once again.

People had ventured out onto the beach between the two piers after the rain—it was not a long beach, not much more than half a mile. Some dogs were chasing one another; a group of young people were playing volleyball; a fisherman was sorting out his nets. Van Veeteren couldn’t remember when he had last visited this rather old-fashioned seaside resort with its olde-worlde charm; its heyday, when the Casino and Spa Hotel flourished, came to an end at some point in the twenties, unless he was much mistaken—but he had been there several times even so. With Renate and with the children as well; perhaps it was only a couple of occasions, now that he came to think about it…. A few days each time, but Behrensee was small enough for him to remember where Florian’s was located.

Strictly speaking there wasn’t much more to the place than the elegant promenade, so he couldn’t very well have missed the guesthouse, in any case. But he had a clear memory of it.

A high, art nouveau façade at the southernmost end of a row of hotels and boutiques, squashed between a recently built supermarket and the slightly shabby Sea Horse hotel, where he had stayed during one of his short visits.

If he remembered rightly, that is.

And he did. It was a narrow building, five stories high, painted pink and white. The copper roof was still glowing faintly in the last rays of the setting sun, and the balconies were a deep wine red color. A little bit worse for wear here and there, but certainly not one of the cheaper establishments in this idyllic if crackled resort.

He went through the milky white glass doors. Placed his briefcase carefully on the floor and rang the bell on the reception desk. After half a minute a middle-aged woman appeared with a towel in her hands. It looked as if she had been busy drying dishes. She squinted at him over the edge of her gold-framed spectacles, and hid the towel away.

“Yes?”

“I’m looking for Arnold Jahrens. If my information is correct, he is staying here.”

“Let’s have a look.”

She turned some pages of the ledger.

“Yes, that’s right. Room 53. It’s on the top floor. You can take the elevator.”

She stood on tiptoe and pointed over his shoulder.

“Is he in now?”

She checked the key rack.

“I think so. He hasn’t left his key here, in any case.”

“The top floor, you said?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” said Van Veeteren. “I’ll just see to a few things first; then I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“As you wish,” said the woman, picking up the towel again.

He knocked twice, but there was no sign of life.

He tried the handle, and the door swung open.

An ordinary sort of room, he decided. But with a certain traditional charm. A wide bed with an iron frame. Quite high, dark wainscoting. A small desk. Two even smaller armchairs. A wardrobe.

To the left, just inside the door, was the bathroom. As he could see the room was empty, he opened the door and switched on the light.

Empty here as well. There was no bath, only a modern shower; there was no suitable place for somebody intending to commit suicide.

He entered the room. Put his briefcase on the desk and dug a toothpick from the supply in his breast pocket. Looked around.

“Detective Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, I presume?”

The voice came from the balcony and had just the restrained tone of mockery and self-confidence that Van Veeteren was dreading most of all.

“Mr. Jahrens,” he said, going out onto the balcony. “May I sit down?”

The powerfully built man nodded and indicated the empty basket chair on the other side of the table.

“I have to say that you seem to have a damn good imagination for a police officer. I really don’t understand how anybody could cook up a story like this one.”

Van Veeteren opened his briefcase.

“Whiskey or brandy?” he asked.

“If you think it will help if you make me drunk, you have another thought coming.”

“Not at all,” said Van Veeteren. “It’s just that I couldn’t find any beer.”

“All right.”

He fetched two glasses from inside the room, and Van Veeteren poured.

“You don’t need to play around,” he said. “The fact is that I know you have three lives on your conscience, and I shall make sure that you don’t get away with it. Cheers.”

“Cheers,” said Jahrens. “And how do you think you are going to do that? I expect you have a little microphone or transmitter hidden away somewhere that’s linked to a tape recorder somewhere else, and you’re hoping that I’m going to get tipsy and let the cat out of the bag. Isn’t that a cheap trick? Is that how you trap folks nowadays?”

“Not at all,” said Van Veeteren. “It wouldn’t hold up in court, anyway, but I’m sure you know that. No, I’m simply going to tell you how I see it. If you’re frightened of a tape recorder or something of the sort, you can nod or shake your head as you please. I think you need to run through it all, you as well.”

“Rubbish,” said Jahrens, sipping his whiskey. “Sure as hell, you’ve made me curious. It’s not every day you get an opportunity to study a police officer with a screw loose at close quarters.”

He smiled and shook a cigarette out of the pack on the table in front of him.

“Would you like one?”

“Yes, please.”

Van Veeteren accepted both the cigarette and a light before he got under way.

“Tell me about Leopold Verhaven!”

Arnold Jahrens smiled again and drew on his cigarette. Looked up and gazed out to sea. A few seconds passed.

“It’ll be fine weather tomorrow, don’t you think, Chief Inspector? Will you be staying here for some days?”

“As you like,” said Van Veeteren, leaning forward over the table. “I’ll tell you what happened, and you can interrupt me if anything is unclear…. You have murdered three people. Beatrice Holden, Marlene Nietsch and Leopold Verhaven. Verhaven has been in jail for twenty-four years, thanks to you. You are a bastard; don’t be misled by my friendly tone.”

Jahrens’s cheek muscle twitched several times, but he said nothing.

“The only thing I’m not a hundred percent certain of is the motive. Although I’m pretty sure about that in outline even so. Correct me if I’m wrong, as I said. On April sixth, 1962, a Saturday, you go up to Verhaven’s house in the woods because you know Beatrice Holden is alone there. Presumably you’ve waited until the electrician finished what he was doing, and when you’ve seen him walking back home to the village, you set off. You are horny. Less than a week ago you’ve had Beatrice lying on your sofa, naked under a blanket, and that’s more than you can cope with. You’ve probably peeked at her under the blanket, maybe touched her as well, while she was sleeping off her intoxication and your semi-invalid wife is upstairs in the bedroom with no idea of what’s going on. Your two-year-old daughter as well. Maybe you put your hands between her legs…between Beatrice Holden’s legs; that’s where you’re itching to be. A hot-blooded, sexy, good-looking woman—unlike your wife, lying upstairs as cold as ice, who never lets you in.”

Arnold took a sip of his drink, but his expression didn’t change.

“You arrive at The Big Shadow, and there she is. All on her own. Verhaven is in Maardam and isn’t expected home for several hours. She’s there for the taking. All you need to do is to go up to her, whisper a few fancy words, pull off her panties and get cracking. Why didn’t she want to, Mr. Jahrens? Tell me that. Why weren’t you allowed in between Beatrice Holden’s legs—she was generally so keen? Hadn’t she already half-promised you a reward that night when you took her in? Or was it just that you’d misunderstood it?”

Jahrens coughed.

“What an imagination,” he said and emptied his glass. “You’re the one who’s perverted, Chief Inspector, not me.”

“It was scandalous, wasn’t it? Isn’t that how it felt?”

“What was?”

“That you weren’t allowed to screw Beatrice Holden. That the wretched Leopold Verhaven could have her, but not you. That stupid lump of shit that you’d looked down on ever since you’d been at school together. Leopold Verhaven! The cheat! The egg seller in The Big Shadow! A pathetic creature you’ve despised all your life…And here he is, living with this desirable woman, while you, you’ve married a highly desirable farm, one of the richest in the whole of Kaustin, but at what price! The price is your worn-out wife who’ll never let you have her, and now you’re here, this particular Saturday afternoon, and Beatrice Holden won’t let you have her either. Maybe she laughs at you—yes, damn it all, I think she laughs at you, and says she’ll tell Verhaven when he comes home what a useless old goat you are.”

He paused briefly. Jahrens stubbed out his cigarette and gazed out to sea again.

“Would you mind telling me if there are any details in my reconstruction that are not correct?” said Van Veeteren, leaning back in his chair.

Jahrens said nothing. Sat there without moving, but showed no sign of nervous tension or irritation.

“So I was right from start to finish? I thought as much,” said Van Veeteren with a satisfied smile. “Maybe you’d like to continue yourself, nevertheless? How you raped her and strangled her. Or was it the other way round?”

“I shall be informing your superiors about this conversation,” said Jahrens after a few seconds. “First thing tomorrow morning.”

“Excellent,” said Van Veeteren. “A drop more whiskey?”

Without a word, Jahrens picked up the bottle and refilled his glass. Van Veeteren raised his glass as if to toast him, but his host wasn’t even looking at him. They drank in silence.

“Number two,” said Van Veeteren. “Marlene Nietsch.”

Jahrens raised his hand.

“No, thank you,” he said. “You’ve gone far enough. You can go to hell with your damned fantasies. I’ve better things to do than to…”

“That would never occur to me,” Van Veeteren cut him short. “I’m staying where I am.”

Jahrens snorted and for the first time looked to be of two minds. About time, Van Veeteren thought.

“All right. Either you give me your word that you’ll be out of here in half an hour at the most, or I’ll call the police right now.”

“I am the police,” said Van Veeteren. “Wouldn’t it be better if you tried to contact a lawyer? A good lawyer? You still wouldn’t have a chance, but it generally feels better if you’ve done everything in your power, believe you me.”

Jahrens lit another cigarette, but made no move to head for the telephone. Van Veeteren stood up and looked out to sea. The sun had sunk below the horizon some considerable time ago, and blue twilight hovered over the town. He stood there for about a minute with his hands on the low railing, waiting for Jahrens to make a move. But he didn’t.

Just sat there in the basket chair. Took a sip of whiskey now and again, apparently unconcerned by the presence of Van Veeteren.

Perhaps he had never been worried? Not even for one moment?

Better press on, thought Van Veeteren, sitting down opposite him once more.

He poured out the last drops from the whiskey bottle and held it out over the table.

“It doesn’t go very far,” he said, and Jahrens gave a laugh.

It was dark now. The little lamp in the corner of the balcony was not strong enough to reach very far either. For the last half hour Arnold Jahrens had been little more than a motionless outline. A dark silhouette, with his face in shadow, making it impossible for Van Veeteren to see what effect his words and all his efforts were having. Assuming they had any at all.

“So you’re not going to tell me where you interred his head? That’s a little shameful, don’t you think? I fear you will not end up very high in Dante’s inferno, I suppose you’re aware of that?”

He was expressing himself rather more formally; hard to say why, perhaps it was to do with the alcohol and the darkness.

Jahrens said nothing.

“How do you think your daughter is going to react?”

“What to? To your laughable insinuations?”

“Laughable? Do you really think she’ll laugh?”

Jahrens burst out laughing again, as if he wanted to be the one who judged what was an appropriate reaction.

“Your wife was able to refrain from laughter, in any case.”

Jahrens snorted instead. There was a distinct trace of tipsiness in it, Van Veeteren thought, and he decided to pin his faith on that judgment and that circumstance. Now’s the moment, he thought. Make or break. He was beginning to feel less than clear in the head himself, in fact; they had certainly drunk a great deal, and there was a limit to the time available.

“Would you like to check on that?” he asked.

“On what?”

“How your daughter reacts to all this?”

“What the hell do you mean?”

Van Veeteren pulled the little pin out of his lapel and held it up between his thumb and index finger.

“Do you know what this is?”

Jahrens shook his head.

“A transmitter. Just as you guessed at the start.”

“So what, damn it?” said Jahrens, interrupting him. “You know very well that I haven’t confirmed the tiniest detail of all this crap you’ve been coming out with.”

“That’s what you think,” said Van Veeteren. “Perhaps you’ll change your mind when you hear the tape. That’s what usually happens.”

“Crap,” said Jahrens, fumbling for another cigarette. “What’s this got to do with my daughter? Are you going to play it for her, or what the hell do you mean?”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Van Veeteren, carefully replacing the pin in his lapel.

“Won’t be necessary? And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“She’s already heard it all.”

Jahrens dropped his cigarette and gaped. Van Veeteren stood up.

“These two rooms,” he said, pointing with both hands. “Number 52 and number 54…”

Jahrens took hold of the chair arms and started to rise to his feet.

“What the devil…?”

“Three police officers are sitting in room 52 with a tape recorder. They have noted every single word of our conversation. Haven’t missed a detail, I can assure you. In the other room…”

He pointed.

“…in the other room are your daughter, Andrea, and her husband.”

“What the hell…?”

Van Veeteren went over to the railing and pointed again.

“If you come here you can catch a glimpse of them, if you lean out a little bit….”

Arnold Jahrens needed no second invitation, and it was soon all over. Even so, Van Veeteren knew that those brief seconds would haunt him through all the dark nights of the rest of his life.

Perhaps even longer.

When he came out to the car, he could feel that he was much more drunk than he had thought, and there was obviously no question of him sitting behind the wheel. He took off the false beard and wig, put them in a plastic carrier bag and pushed it under the driver’s seat for the time being. Then he nestled down under the blanket on the backseat and wished himself a good and dreamless night.

Five minutes later he was sleeping like a log, and by the time the ambulance and the police cars started arriving, he was beyond reach of the sirens and the raised voices.

Nobody paid any attention to the slightly battered Opel, somewhat carelessly parked in the darkness two blocks north of Florian’s Guesthouse. Why should they?