The G File

by Håkan Nesser

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Reinhart. ‘I wasn’t born yesterday. Damn and blast! . . . But in a way I’m beginning to think that it was a good thing that our private eye let the cat out of the bag after he’d taken a drop too much.’

  ‘Why?’ wondered Münster.

  ‘Because it would have felt even worse to have been forced to let Hennan go free at this early stage. All the fuss means that there will at least be a trial.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I’m inclined to agree with you. But of course there’s a risk that the judge will intervene and dismiss the case if he thinks the evidence is insufficient. Even if the prosecutor seems to be willing to give the circus a green light. We don’t know who the judge will be yet, but there are a few who care as much about public opinion as a killer bear worries about a flea.’

  ‘Poetic,’ said Reinhart. ‘Are you thinking about Hart?’

  ‘I suppose I am,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Anyway, at least we have a few weeks in which to dig deeper. And of course we have stumbled upon bits of information before. All initiatives are welcome . . . And anybody who feels up to sitting eye to eye with G is welcome to do so – just let me know in advance.’

  ‘I don’t think I would like that,’ said Reinhart.

  ‘What you would like is not very relevant in this case,’ said the Chief Inspector.

  The press conference came and went.

  The decision to arrest Hennan was of course a goody that the reporters were only too pleased to gulp down, and Van Veeteren was reminded yet again of the rather-nail-him-than-bail-him mentality that always seemed to prevail in the media at this early stage of a case. The first priority was to find the murder, the spectacular crime, and they had done that. Then there was a race to point out the murderer: that was the detail the next day’s billboards and headlines would feature. In Act Three, they liked to do a complete about turn (if that was possible, and the Chief Inspector had no doubt that there were circumstances in this case that would make it possible) – and try to stand up for the accused. Was he really guilty? Had the police in fact arrested the wrong man? Should an innocent man be found guilty? Could one have faith in the rule of law?

  And then, if the accused was in fact found guilty: was it possible to write stories about him? His childhood and teenage years and a mass of extenuating circumstances?

  That is how things would proceed, and over the years Van Veeteren had learned how to accept the inevitable. If he had been a journalist rather than a detective chief inspector, he would presumably have played the game according to those rules, just as now – as far as possible – he tried to act in accordance with the terminology that formed the framework of a CID officer’s work. There was a temptation to skirt round them from time to time, from case to case, but so far – after almost a quarter of a century in the trade – he had never overstepped the mark. Not flagrantly, at least.

  After the tussle with the press, which lasted less than half an hour, he withdrew to his office and spent some time chewing over these circumstances. Wondering about if, one day, he might reach a point when he felt the urge to take the law into his own hands. When the circumstances were such that doing so might be justified. Morally and existentially.

  Even in the private sphere of his own ruminations, he tried to keep his thoughts on a theoretical level. Tried to avoid dragging G onto the stage – so that the question remained at the level of what one ought to do, rather than what one would like to do. To echo Reinhart’s words.

  That was easier said than done, and when he realized that he was wishing he could roll Jaan G. Hennan up in that old gymnastics mat that had squeezed the life out of Adam Bronstein’s fragile soul, he gave up.

  Reminded himself of the previous day’s decision to have a serious talk with his wife, and left the police station.

  That also came and went.

  When they had more or less concluded that the split between them was a sort of inevitable fact, they were suddenly able to talk to each other again – but he wondered deep down if this somewhat melancholy mutual respect was in fact the clearest indication that the fate of their marriage was sealed, once and for all. When they were no longer able to allow their emotions to spill over into an out-and-out quarrel, he found it hard to believe that there was any foundation left on which to build. Whatever it was that he had envisaged and desired half a lifetime ago, it was certainly not this lukewarm and cheerless stand-off.

  Perhaps in fact Renate felt the same: but they didn’t discuss this aspect of their putative coexistence. Instead they came to a sort of half-hearted agreement: this was – if he understood it rightly – that they should continue for another six months, and see how things developed.

  And that they should accept a shared responsibility for Erich, who – and it was at this point he saw that Renate was on the point of bursting into tears linked with her bad conscience – was very much in need of all the parental support he could be offered. They were touchingly in agreement on this, and if only their vulnerable son had been at home that rainy Monday evening, they would no doubt have had a serious conversation between the three of them.

  But he wasn’t. And when at about half past eleven Van Veeteren heard him sneaking in through the front door and into his room, Renate was already asleep. He let sleeping dogs lie.

  I know so damned little about his life, he thought.

  What does he think about? What are his dreams and plans and fantasies?

  Why don’t I know more about my own son?

  And with the bitter taste of neglect in his mouth he fell asleep.

  21

  Early summer became high summer.

  If it had to do with private or professional reasons he was never quite sure, but for the next three weeks he took part in no further interrogations of G.

  Reinhart and Münster played the Nasty Cop-Nice Cop game on a few occasions, with Reinhart playing the role of the unpleasant officer and Münster the rather more humane one. It was an old ruse and easy to see through, but it sometimes paid off even so. To some extent, at least. When a person is treated with friendliness and understanding after aggression and animosity, he finds it hard not to give way and unburden his mind. Irrespective of whether or not he realizes that it was all an act.

  But not in this case. After a few long and fruitless sessions, Reinhart and Münster agreed that Jaan G. Hennan regarded their visits mostly as a sort of welcome – and almost entertaining – relief in the tedium of waiting for the trial to begin that had become his everyday routine, and they agreed to put a stop to it. If it was not possible to extract any information by interrogating him, then perhaps the loneliness and isolation might make him wobble slightly.

  The Chief Inspector took upon himself the task of speaking to people recommended by Rooth and Jung for a follow-up interview. He had asked them for the names of at least a handful of people who might just possibly have information about what Hennan had been getting up to after his return from the USA, and they had obeyed the order. They had given him a list of five names. Not six or seven: he realized that if he had asked for at least three, he would have received precisely that number.

  The whole operation had cost several working days, and afterwards Van Veeteren was able to confirm that the time had been wasted just as Inspector Rooth had claimed it would be. None of the five – nor any of the other twenty-two interviewees – had had any contact with Hennan whatsoever in recent times. At least, none of them admitted to being in touch with him; and on the day before the trial was due to begin in the Linden courthouse, when the Chief Inspector attempted to sum up the result of a month’s work aimed at throwing light on the circumstances surrounding Barbara Hennan’s death, he came up with the round but deeply unsatisfactory number of zero.

  Absolutely nothing. They knew no more now than they had known at the beginning of June. Nothing had been refined from a suspicion to a certainty, nothing had turned up from an unexpected quarter – as sometimes happened as a sort of reward for va
liant drudgery.

  Things had not gone their way, to put it in a nutshell, and it was probably this grim truth that was nagging away in the back of his mind when he decided to confront the leading character one last time. One early Monday morning, when he sat down opposite him yet again in the bleak interrogation room, it felt as if he were in the closing stages of a hopeless game of chess, with so few pieces left and the situation so deadlocked that the only possible moves remaining were repetitive and leading nowhere apart from an inevitable draw.

  And it was presumably because of this that he decided to change the routine a little.

  ‘Your lawyer?’

  Hennan shook his head.

  ‘Not necessary. I don’t want to expose her to this nonsense.’

  ‘All right. Then I suggest we have a conversation off the record.’

  ‘Off the record?’ said Hennan. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it could be interesting,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘No tape recorder and no witnesses.’

  ‘I don’t understand the point.’

  ‘That’s neither here nor there. Let’s go to another room.’

  ‘By all means. But just for a change. As far as I know you even have bugs in the loos.’

  ‘You have my word,’ said Van Veeteren.

  ‘Your word?’ Hennan burst out laughing, and stood up. ‘Okay! Off the record, if you think it will make any difference.’

  The Chief Inspector chose one of the so-called discussion rooms on the first floor. He asked if Hennan fancied a beer, and rang down to the canteen and asked them to come up with two.

  ‘Shouldn’t we have a lie-detector test?’ asked Hennan after taking his first swig. ‘That might be interesting, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t see the point,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I know you are lying even so.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve gathered that you think that. But next week at this time, when I’m a free man, don’t pretend that you didn’t understand the fact of the matter.’

  ‘Your conception of time is a little out of joint,’ said the Chief Inspector. ‘In my judgement you’ll have to wait for fifteen years. Not a week.’

  Hennan smiled.

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ he said. ‘My lawyer says that she has seldom if ever seen a prosecutor as naked as this one.’

  ‘Does she, indeed?’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Anyway, I suggest we abandon these clichés and get down to some serious talking instead.’

  ‘Serious?’ said Hennan. ‘Off the record?’

  The Chief Inspector nodded and lit a cigarette.

  ‘Exactly. I think you need to get things off your chest, and you have my word that whatever you say will not be used against you.’

  Hennan looked at him for a brief moment with something that seemed like interest.

  ‘Why should I need to do that?’ he asked.

  ‘Basic psychology,’ said Van Veeteren, pausing briefly while he rolled up his shirtsleeves.

  ‘Psychology?’ said Hennan. ‘It stinks of desperation, if you’ll excuse—’

  ‘Rubbish. Let me explain. You are regarding this as a sort of trial of strength . . . between you and us. You are obsessed by the thought of winning. But if you really were innocent, being exonerated would hardly be a feather in your cap, would it?’

  Hennan said nothing. Took a drink of beer.

  ‘One point two million goes quite a long way, of course: but your triumph would be getting away with it despite the fact that you are guilty. And so it would be a plus-point – a big plus-point – if one of us . . . me for example . . . knew exactly what the facts are. Are you with me? It has to do with aesthetics.’

  Hennan leaned back and smiled briefly again.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Of course I’m with you. But if what you say is correct, you seem to be convinced already that I am behind the death of my wife. Isn’t that enough? If I’m satisfied with the money, can’t you be satisfied with the fact that you know?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I am a scrupulous person, and there are certain question marks. I don’t quite have the whole picture clear before me.’

  ‘Really?’ said Hennan. ‘So the Chief Inspector wants some details. How I actually did it. How I could sit in that restaurant and even so kill my wife. Have you considered hypnotism?’

  The Chief Inspector nodded.

  ‘Of course. But you are no more hypnotic than a donkey.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Hennan. ‘No, I admit that it didn’t happen that way.’

  ‘Good. So that’s one thing we agree about at least. How did it happen, then?’

  ‘You want me to reveal that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hennan turned his head and contemplated the wall for a while, and for a second – or a tiny fraction of a second – the Chief Inspector had the impression that he was about to reveal all.

  To explain how he had in fact taken the life of his wife, Barbara Clarissa Hennan, née Delgado – in a way that was so clever and ingenious that no detective chief inspector in the whole wide world could possibly imagine it.

  Then that split second disappeared into its shell like a mussel; and looking back, it was not possible to say if it had been imagination or not. Hennan slowly straightened his back and took a deep breath. Directed his gaze once more at Van Veeteren, and eyed him with an expression of mild contempt.

  ‘It seems to be nice weather out there.’

  ‘Could be worse.’

  ‘Thank you for the beer. Perhaps I can return the compliment next week. I know a good place in Linden.’

  Huh, I hate that bastard, thought the Chief Inspector. I really do.

  That night he dreamed he was making love to Christa Koogel.

  They were married, had four children and lived in a big house by the sea. Behrensee, as far as he could make out, south of the pier. Just how this came to him in a dream was unclear, to say the least; but it was a fact even so. It was not a sudden, frenzied bout of intercourse, but calm and tender love-making with a woman who had been his life’s companion for many years; and when he woke up it was clear to him that he had been on a journey in search of one of those alternative paths through life. A possibility that had not become reality, a direction his life could have taken if only something else had not intervened instead.

  If he had not made different choices. Or if he had made them.

  He looked at the clock. It was only half past five. He noticed that he was covered in sweat: if this was a result of his illusory love-making, or if it was the cold sweat caused by the angst of what might be in store in the day to come, he didn’t know. The dream lingered on inside him like a stab of sorrow, and he knew that he would be unable to go back to sleep.

  He got up carefully – so as not to wake up his actual life’s companion – and had a shower instead. Stood there for ages, hoping the water would wash away some of the slag inside his body as well: but it was doubtful if he succeeded in that. When he sat down at the breakfast table with the Allgemejne, it was twenty minutes to seven. The trial in Linden was not due to begin until ten o’clock, and he realized that he had a long day ahead of him.

  The first of many.

  22

  In addition to places for those actually involved in the trial, the courtroom in Linden had room for about fifty observers, including authorized representatives of the media; and when the doors were closed before proceedings began, the number of those interested in attending but unable to do so because of the lack of space was about three times as great as the number who could be fitted in.

  In view of the interest aroused by the case of the dead American woman, there had been some discussion about transferring the trial to Maardam, but Judge Hart had dismissed any such suggestion. This is not a football match, after all, he had declared, and the rule of law was not dependent on such irrelevant factors as public interest and media coverage. In no way.

  The Chief Inspector had described Hart as an apathetic toad with an intellect and educati
on equivalent to about half a dozen Nobel Prize-winners, and when Münster contemplated his slim figure up on the podium, he suspected that this was probably a fitting assessment. He looked as if he had been most reluctant to get out of bed that morning, and if he hadn’t slept in his ceremonial robes, they clearly hadn’t been ironed for the last six months. He began by clearing his throat very loudly and changing his glasses three times. Then he slammed his hammer down on the statute book, producing a cloud of dust, and instructed the prosecutor to open proceedings.

  Prosecutor Silwerstein stood up and presented his case. It took just under forty-five minutes, and the gist was that he intended to show how the accused, Jaan G. Hennan, with malice aforethought and ice-cold execution, murdered – or arranged the murder of – his wife, Barbara Clarissa Hennan, née Delgado, on Thursday, 5 June, by pushing her – or arranging for her to be pushed – into the empty swimming pool in the grounds of the pair’s rented home, Villa Zefyr, at Kammerweg 4 in Linden. He intended to make it clear, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Hennan was guilty of this unscrupulous deed, despite the fact – and this was being stated openly and unhesitatingly at this early stage of proceedings – that it was not the intention of the prosecution to base its case on so-called technical proof, since such proof – strictly speaking – could not be found in a case of this kind. It was as simple as that.

  Instead the prosecution intended to base its case on circumstantial evidence – but it was exceptionally telling circumstantial evidence whose implications were crystal clear, and whose combined weight and significance could hardly leave anybody in doubt – especially not any of the five esteemed members of the jury – about who had instigated, staged and carried out the said murder. Likewise – here too in more than merely convincing fashion – the flagrant motive for the crime would be revealed, and placed in razor-sharp relation to what had happened to a previous wife of the accused quite recently in the United States of America. For the second time in the course of four years, the wife of the accused had died in mystical circumstances (at this point a few semantic nit-pickers in the public gallery reacted with half-suppressed giggles), and for the second time Jaan G. Hennan was now hoping to collect a considerable – very considerable! – amount from the company that had insured her life. One point two million!