The Return

by Håkan Nesser

  H: I repeat: Did you think it was a relief not to have her around?

  V: At first, perhaps.

  H: Did your fiancée have a job at that time?

  V: Not just then.

  H: Where did she work when she was employed?

  V: At Kaunitz’s. The garden center in Linzhuisen. But only occasionally.

  H: When did you tell the police that your fiancée, Beatrice Holden, was missing?

  V: On Tuesday, the sixteenth.

  H: Where?

  V: In Maardam, of course.

  H: And what made you report her missing on that particular day? If you weren’t worried?

  V: It just occurred to me. As I was driving past the police station.

  H: So you still didn’t think something might have happened to her?

  V: No. Why should I?

  H: Don’t you think it would be natural to think that?

  V: No. She usually got by.

  H: But she didn’t on this occasion.

  V: No, not on this occasion.

  H: How did you hear that she’d been found dead?

  V: The police came and told me.

  H: How did you react to that?

  V: I was sorry.

  H: Sorry? Sergeant Weiss maintains that you didn’t react at all. That you simply thanked him and asked him to go away.

  V: Why should I cry on his shoulder? I can get by.

  H: Don’t you think you’ve been acting rather strangely since Beatrice Holden disappeared?

  V: No, I don’t think so.

  H: Do you understand that other people might think so?

  V: I don’t know what other people think. They can think whatever they like as far as I’m concerned.

  H: Really? And you are absolutely certain that it wasn’t you who killed your fiancée?

  V: It wasn’t me.

  H: Did you often go to the part of the forest where her body was found?

  V: No.

  H: Have you ever been there?

  V: I might have been.

  H: But not that weekend when she disappeared?

  V: No.

  H: What do you think about her death, Mr. Verhaven?

  V: Nothing.

  H: You must have some idea about how she died?

  V: Some man or other, of course. Some sick type who can’t find himself a woman.

  H: You don’t regard yourself as somebody like that?

  V: I have no difficulty in finding myself women.

  H: Thank you. No further questions at present.

  Van Veeteren stuffed the bundle of papers into the narrow space under the top of his bedside table. It was very nearly one o’clock.

  I’d better get some sleep, he thought.

  Verhaven?

  If only he’d been present at the trials! At the very least he could have spent an hour or two in court in connection with the Marlene case, when he’d played a minor role in the investigation. It might have been enough, actually seeing him in the flesh.

  A few minutes watching him in the dock and he’d have known. Known if the nagging worry at the back of his mind was something to follow up. If there was any justification for it at all, or if Verhaven really was the primitive man of violence he’d been portrayed as being.

  Guilty or not guilty, then?

  It was impossible to say. Impossible then, impossible now.

  But no matter what, there was no getting away from one fact: Somebody had been lying in wait for him when he was released from prison.

  Somebody had killed him and butchered his body. Somebody had tried to ensure that they wouldn’t be able to identify him. That must surely have been the intention?

  And finally: Somebody must have had a reason.

  What?

  That was another question that still remained. Untouched and unanswered.

  He switched off the light. Closed his eyes, and before he knew it, he had started dreaming about Jess and the twins. In French.

  It was astonishing what his mind was capable of in the early hours of the morning….

  Mind you, their visit to the ward the previous afternoon had hardly passed unnoticed.

  A cracked windowpane, a split cuticle, a demolished infusion stand and other minor calamities. He had noticed that the smiles on the faces of the staff had become somewhat strained as time went by. As the noise level increased and accidents became more frequent.

  How the hell does she manage? he wondered, allowing himself a faint smile as he slept. She must have inherited some of her father’s mental strength, presumably.

  Sans doute, oui.

  22

  “Gossec’s Requiem?” said the young man with dark curly hair, pushing his glasses up onto his forehead. “Did you say Gossec’s Requiem?”

  “Yes,” said Münster. “Is there such a thing?”

  “Oh yes, there certainly is.” He nodded assiduously and leafed through a folder. “It’s just that we don’t have it. There is a recording with the French Radio Choir from 1959, I think; but there’s nothing on CD. Your best bet would be to ask at Laudener’s.”

  “Laudener’s?”

  “Yes, at Karlsplatsen. If they don’t have it we could always try to get it secondhand. The label is Vertique.”

  “Thank you very much,” said Münster, and left the store.

  He glanced at his watch and saw that he wouldn’t have time to go to Karlsplatsen. He was due to meet Judge Heidelbluum at six o’clock, and he had the feeling the old gentleman would not be best pleased if he arrived late.

  I wish the chief inspector could stick with Bach or Mozart, he thought as he got into his car. Why the hell does he want to lie in a hospital bed listening to this particular requiem?

  He parked in Guyderstraat, in the Wooshejm suburb, a considerable distance away from Heidelbluum’s house. No doubt the old gentleman wouldn’t be best pleased if he arrived too soon, either. He decided to take the opportunity of having a stroll around this exclusive district, where he didn’t normally set foot.

  There never seemed to be a reason to do so. Insofar as there was any crime at all in Wooshejm, it was the more sophisticated, financial kind, not the sort of thing an ordinary, simple detective inspector would get involved in.

  The houses skirted the western edge of the municipal forest; a lot of the sizeable plots backed directly up to the trees, so the owners could enjoy a very pleasant combination of town and countryside. There were about sixty or seventy houses in all, built at the beginning of this century or the end of the last; nowadays you could be sure that three or four times as many villas would be built in the same area. Münster knew that the wealth and fortunes concealed behind these flowering hedges and copper-topped walls accounted for most of the town’s tax income. This was where the cream lived, you could say. Retired surgeons and professors, elderly generals and district judges, the occasional former government minister and industrial magnate of the old school. Newly arrived aristocratic families, perhaps, who had tired of the family seat and life in the country. There was no doubt that the average age of the gentlefolk living in this neighborhood was much closer to a hundred than fifty. And Heidelbluum was far from being a youngster, even in this exalted company.

  A dying race, thought Münster as he sauntered slowly along the quiet street, the air laden with the scent of jasmine; and when he heard the cries of children and the splashing of water behind one of the hedges, he knew that those responsible were great-grandchildren rather than grandchildren.

  Ah well, some of it will be handed on to the next generation, it seemed reasonable to assume.

  He came to the Heidelbluum residence and rang the bell by the gate in the high wall. After a while he heard footsteps on the gravel path on the other side and a maid appeared, wearing a black skirt and blouse, an apron and a white hat.

  “Yes?”

  “Detective Inspector Münster. I have an appointment with the judge.”

  “Please come this way,” she said, opening the gate a little wider. />
  She was buxom, with pretty red hair. She couldn’t be more than nineteen or twenty, Münster thought.

  What strange worlds there were in existence.

  Judge Heidelbluum received visitors in his library, but the French doors were open, leading out to a newly mowed lawn and fruit trees in blossom. The contrast between inside and outside was so marked, it almost seemed to be a parody of the situation, Münster thought. Outside, it was early summer, new life stirring and sprouting, fresh scents and birdsong; inside, it was predominantly dark oak, leather, damask and old books. And a rather pungent smell from the blackish green cigarillos that Heidelbluum insisted on smoking one puff at a time, before depositing them in an ashtray of oxblood-colored porphyry on the desk in front of him.

  A bit reminiscent of the thin cigars Van Veeteren occasionally felt like smoking, Münster noted. Both in looks and smell.

  He was ushered into a leather armchair in classical Anglo-Saxon style; it had obviously been placed in front of the desk specifically for this occasion, and as Münster settled down into it, he noticed that the old judge’s bald and birdlike head was swaying back and forth a couple of feet higher than his own.

  That was no coincidence, of course.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me and to let me ask you some questions,” he began.

  Heidelbluum nodded. In fact he had been negative about the request until Hiller and Van Veeteren intervened and persuaded him to see reason.

  He’s not quite all there, Van Veeteren had warned Münster. Not all the time, at least. Handle him carefully.

  “As things stand,” Münster continued, “we would be most grateful if you would kindly give us the benefit of your views. There doesn’t seem to be anybody who knows more about the case of Leopold Verhaven than you.”

  “Quite right,” said Heidelbluum, lighting the cigarillo.

  “You know that we found him murdered, I take it?”

  “The chief of police mentioned that.”

  “To tell you the truth, we’re groping around in the dark as far as a motive is concerned,” said Münster. “One theory we are working on is that it must be connected in some way with the Beatrice and Marlene cases.”

  “In what way?” asked Heidelbluum. His tone was sharper now.

  “We don’t know,” said Münster.

  There was a pause. Heidelbluum drew on the cigarillo, then put it down. Münster drank a little soda water from the glass he had been given. Van Veeteren had advised him to allow the old judge plenty of time; not to put him under pressure, but give him lots of time to think and reflect. There’s no point in cross-questioning an eighty-two-year-old, he had maintained.

  “It was my last case,” said Heidelbluum, clearing his throat. “The Marlene trial, that is. Hmm. My very last.”

  Was there a trace of regret in his voice, or was Münster only imagining it?

  “So I understand.”

  “Hmm,” said Heidelbluum again.

  “It would be interesting to hear what you thought of him.”

  Heidelbluum ran his index and middle fingers along the inside of his shirt collar, and slightly loosened the dark blue cravat he was wearing around his neck.

  “I’m an old man,” he said. “I might last for another summer, perhaps. A couple more at most.”

  He paused for a moment, as if feeling for the thread. Münster eyed the rows of dark, leather-bound books behind the judge’s back. I wonder how many of them he’s read, he wondered, and how many he can remember.

  “I’m not bothered about it anymore.”

  “What are you not bothered about?”

  “Leopold Verhaven. You’re too young to understand. He has worried me quite a lot…. Both those damned affairs. I wish I’d been able to get out of that second trial, but there again, it wouldn’t have been fair to pass it on to some other poor soul….”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I thought it would give me an opportunity to be sure about it all. Draw a line under all the doubt raised by the first tribunal.”

  “Tribunal?”

  “Call it whatever you like. It was a devil of a business, no matter how you look at it. Don’t quote me on that.”

  “I’m not a journalist,” said Münster.

  “No, of course not,” said Heidelbluum, picking up the cigarillo again.

  “Am I right in thinking that you believe Verhaven was innocent?”

  Heidelbluum shook his head.

  “Oh no. Good Lord, no. I’ve never found anybody guilty when I didn’t think they were guilty. Good heavens no! But he was…a mystery. Yes, a mystery. You and your colleagues won’t be able to make sense of it; you needed to be there and see the man. Everything about him was a mystery. I was on the bench for over thirty years, and I’ve seen it all, but I’ve never come across anything like Leopold Verhaven. Nothing.”

  He lit the cigarillo and took a drag.

  “Could you elaborate on that a little?”

  “Hmm. Well, no, you don’t understand this. The most remarkable thing about it is that he was found to be sane enough to plead. It would have explained a lot if they’d found some kind of derangement or mental disorder, but there was never any question of that.”

  “What was so remarkable about him, then?” Münster asked.

  Heidelbluum thought for a while.

  “There were lots of things. He didn’t care about the verdict, for instance. I’ve thought a lot about that, and my lasting impression is that Leopold Verhaven was totally indifferent about being found guilty or not. Totally indifferent.”

  “That sounds odd,” said Münster.

  “You bet it’s odd, damned odd. That’s what I’m saying.”

  “I have the impression that he enjoyed being accused,” said Münster.

  “No doubt about it,” said Heidelbluum. “He was very happy to sit there like the spider at the center of a legal web, playing what everybody thought was the leading role. He didn’t make it obvious, of course, but I could see it in him. He longed to be in the center of things, and now he’d got what he wanted.”

  “Did he enjoy it so much that he was prepared to crawl into prison for twelve years? Twice, in fact?”

  Heidelbluum sighed.

  “Hmm,” he said. “That’s precisely the point at the center of it all.”

  Münster sat for some time without speaking, listening to the water sprinkler being used somewhere in the garden.

  “When he heard the verdict, I’ll be damned if he didn’t give a little smile. Both times. What do you say to that?”

  “What about the submission of evidence and the court findings, that kind of thing?” Münster asked cautiously.

  “Weak,” said Heidelbluum. “But sufficient, as I said. I’ve found prisoners guilty on weaker grounds.”

  “And sentenced them to twelve years?”

  Heidelbluum made no reply.

  “Was it the same in both trials?” Münster asked.

  Heidelbluum shrugged.

  “In a way,” he said. “Both were based on circumstantial evidence. Strong prosecuting counsels, Hagendeck and Kiesling. The defending counsels did their duty, but not much more. The Marlene case had a bit more meat to it, as it were. Lots of witnesses, meetings, precise timings—even reconstructions. A real puzzle, in fact. The first time, there was hardly anything to go on.”

  “But still he was found guilty. Isn’t that a bit strange?” asked Münster, wondering as he spoke if he was going too far.

  But Heidelbluum seemed not to have noticed the insinuation. He was bent over his desk, gazing out into the garden, and seemed to be lost in thought. Half a minute passed.

  “Two of them wanted to let him go,” he said suddenly.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mrs. Paneva and that factory owner wanted to set him free. Two out of a jury of five wanted a not-guilty verdict, but we talked them round.”

  “Really?” said Münster. “Which of the trials was this?”

  But He
idelbluum ignored the question.

  “You have to accept the responsibility,” he said, scratching nervously at his temple and cheek. “That’s what some people find hard to understand.”

  “But nobody abstained?” Münster asked.

  “I have never accepted abstentions in any of my cases,” said Heidelbluum. “The verdict must be unanimous. Especially when it’s first degree.”

  Münster nodded. A reasonable stand to take, he thought. What would it look like if somebody was condemned to ten or twelve years in jail by a majority verdict of three to two? Hardly likely to uphold people’s respect for the law and justice.

  “Were there any other suspects at all?” Münster wondered.

  “No,” said Heidelbluum. “That would have changed everything, if there had been.”

  “How?” Münster asked.

  But Heidelbluum didn’t seem to have heard the question.

  Either that or he’s just ignoring anything he doesn’t want to hear, thought Münster. He decided to put a bit more pressure on the judge. Presumably it was best to strike before the iron cooled down completely. It wouldn’t be possible to go on questioning him for much longer, in any case.

  “But in spite of everything,” he said, “you don’t think it is impossible that Verhaven was in fact innocent?”

  Silence again. Then Heidelbluum sighed deeply, and when he responded, Münster had the impression that it had been formulated in advance—possibly a long time in advance, long before there had been any mention of a visit by the police. A statement, a final, well-thought-out judgment in the case of Leopold Verhaven.

  “I thought he was a murderer,” he said. “When there are no clear indications, you have to make up your mind. That goes with the job. I still think Verhaven was guilty. Of both murders. But to say I was certain would be to tell a lie. Such a long time has gone by, and I’m so close to death that I dare to tell it as it is. I don’t know. I don’t know if it really was Leopold Verhaven who killed Beatrice Holden and Marlene Nietsch. But I think it was him.”

  He paused and took the cigarillo butt from the porphyry ashtray. Looked up and gazed out of the open French doors again.

  “And I hope it was him. Because if it wasn’t, he’s been an innocent man in jail for a quarter of a century. And a double murderer has gone free.”