The Return

43

“Have you seen this?” asked Jung, handing over the newspaper. “Wasn’t it you who interviewed him?”

Rooth looked at the photograph.

“Yes, it was. What the hell’s happened to him?”

“Fell from the fifth floor. Or maybe jumped. Accident or suicide, that’s the question. What was he like?”

Rooth shrugged.

“Much like everybody else. Quite pleasant, I seem to recall. Served up coffee, in any case.”

Reinhart sat down opposite Münster in the canteen.

“Good morning,” he said. “How are you?”

“Now what are you after?” said Münster.

Reinhart tipped the contents of his pipe into the ashtray and started filling it.

“Can I ask you a simple question?” he said.

Münster put the Neuwe Blatt to the side.

“You can always try.”

“Hmm,” said Reinhart, leaning forward over the table. “I don’t suppose you happened to be in Behrensee the evening before last?”

“Certainly not,” said Münster.

“What about the chief inspector?”

“I can’t imagine he would have been. He’s still on sick leave.”

“Ah yes, so he is,” said Reinhart. “I just thought I’d ask. An idea had occurred to me.”

“Really?” said Münster.

He went back to his newspaper, and Reinhart lit his pipe.

Hiller knocked and came straight in. DeBries and Rooth looked up from the reports they were writing.

“That was a nasty accident out at Behrensee,” said the chief of police, rubbing his chin. “Is it something we ought to look into?”

“Surely not,” said deBries. “The local boys can look after it.”

“OK. I just thought I’d ask. You can go back to whatever it was you were doing.”

And the same to you, deBries thought, exchanging glances with Rooth.

“You know that we’ve had two phone calls, I suppose?” said Rooth when the chief of police had closed the door.

“No,” said deBries. “What kind of phone calls?”

“Anonymous. From Kaustin. They don’t seem to be from the same person, either. One was a man, the other a woman, according to Krause.”

DeBries looked up and bit his pen.

“What do they say?”

“The same thing, more or less. That this Jahrens had something to do with the murders. The Verhaven murders. They’ve always suspected it, but didn’t want to say anything, it seems. That’s what they say, at least.”

DeBries thought for a while.

“Well. I’ll be damned,” he said. “So he’s got his punishment after all, has he?”

“Could be,” said Rooth. “Mind you, they are probably just a couple of Nosey Parkers who want to make themselves noticed. In any case, it’s not something we need to worry about.”

Nobody spoke for several seconds. Then deBries shrugged.

“No, the case has been dropped, if I understand matters rightly. I think so. We’ve got plenty of stuff to keep our noses to the grindstone.”

“More than enough,” said Rooth.

“May I join you?” asked Mahler, sitting down on the empty chair. “Why are you sitting here, by the way?”

“I sit wherever I like,” said Van Veeteren. “I’m on sick leave, and the weather’s not bad. I like watching people trudging away on the treadmill. Besides, I have a book to read.”

Mahler nodded in sympathy.

“It wouldn’t be so good for you in the sun, perhaps.”

He looked out over the square and summoned one of the waitresses.

“Two dark beers,” he said.

“Thanks,” said Van Veeteren.

They waited until the beer was served, toasted each other, then leaned back in their chairs.

“Well, how did it go?” asked Mahler.

“How did what go?”

“Don’t play games with me,” said Mahler. “I’ve just bought you a damn beer, and given you my poems.”

Van Veeteren took another drink.

“That’s true,” he said. “Anyway, it’s all over now.”

“So he succumbed to your pressure in the end?”

The chief inspector pondered on that for a while.

“Precisely,” he said. “You couldn’t put it more poetically than that.”