The G File

by Håkan Nesser

  But that was enough. She suddenly knew who it was that had been shot in the head out there at Hildeshejm . . . Well, knew was perhaps a bit of an exaggeration: but if anybody had asked her to place a bet on the outcome, she would have had no hesitation in wagering a considerable sum.

  It had to be that private detective – what the hell was his name?

  It took her quite a while to dig up the name from the lists of all the others in the archives of Kaalbringen police station, but she found it in the end.

  Verlangen.

  Maarten Baudewijn Verlangen, to be precise – and of course it was necessary to be precise in a case like this.

  So that was the way it was. The missing former private detective whom that renowned ex-detective chief inspector had been here looking for at the beginning of May. But whom they had failed to find. Because there was no trace of him. Full stop.

  Moerk nodded decisively to herself. Then she picked up the receiver and telephoned her husband Franek – and for a brief moment when she heard his voice was overcome by a deep-seated longing to be with him.

  She told him as much, but he assured her that there was no need to hurry: the two children were asleep, he was busy painting, and was more than happy to wait for her with a bottle of red wine and a big hug until after midnight, if necessary. How was it going with the dead body? he wondered.

  She told him she thought she knew who it was – but that she would have to stay at the police station and make a few telephone calls. And also report to deKlerk when he eventually condescended to turn up. But she assured him that as soon as all this was cleared up, she would hasten home and switch off all the lights.

  He laughed, and bade her welcome.

  She sat there thinking for a while before picking up the telephone again: it was not easy to decide what to do, but she eventually ignored all the objections and rang Bausen’s home number. Since she assumed that the antiquarian bookshop in Maardam would not be open at half past nine on a Saturday evening . . .

  And since Van Veeteren had not given her his home number.

  Van Veeteren was telephoned in turn by Bausen half an hour later – and having absorbed the brief, preliminary information he was even more convinced than Inspector Moerk that the dead body really was that of Maarten Verlangen.

  There were no especially rational arguments to support that hypothesis as yet, of course: but he had dreamt about Jaan G. Hennan (in a remarkable role as a ruthless, horned judge in some kind of war crimes trial) just a couple of nights ago, and he had solved that day’s chess problem in the Allgemejne in less than half a minute, which was some kind of record.

  There was something in the air, in other words; and after Bausen’s phone call he realized what it was.

  Water had flowed under the bridge, to use an image referring to another element, and it was time to write another chapter in the G File.

  But this really must be the last one, he thought when he had hung up and returned to his sofa, Ulrike and the Finnish film on Channel 4. I really must put a full stop at the end of all this pretty soon.

  There was a time for everything, of course, but there were limits.

  ‘Who was that?’ asked Ulrike, lifting up Stravinsky and placing him underneath the blanket.

  ‘Bausen,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘They think they’ve found Verlangen.’

  Ulrike picked up the remote control and switched off the sound.

  ‘The private detective?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Yes. Since April, or thereabouts. Just as I’d thought.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘How what?’

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘Shot through the head.’

  ‘What the hell . . .?’

  ‘You heard right.’

  ‘Good Lord! Up in Kaalbringen, then?’

  ‘Just outside – although they haven’t officially identified him yet.’

  ‘But they think it’s him?’

  ‘Evidently. It will be confirmed tomorrow.’

  Ulrike nodded. Lifted up the cat again and tickled him absent-mindedly under his chin while watching the silent pictures on the television screen. Half a minute passed.

  ‘What are you going to—’

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘It’s a matter for the police.’

  ‘Of course.’

  He sat there thinking for a while, wondering what to say next.

  ‘Well, anybody’s allowed to go chasing shadows,’ he said in due course. ‘But assumed murders are not something that should be placed on the desk of an antiquarian bookseller.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Ulrike Fremdli. ‘Where have I heard that before?’

  33

  Chief of Police deKlerk tugged thoughtfully at his right earlobe, and glared at Inspector Beate Moerk.

  ‘So, that’s the way the land lies, is it?’ he said. ‘I have to say

  I’m sceptical.’

  Moerk shrugged. She was used to her boss being sceptical. To exaggerate only slightly one could say that it was his most dominant characteristic.

  Doubt. She had been working with him for just over six years now, and knew that he never bought a pig in a poke. Never took anything for granted. If somebody came into the police station and told deKlerk that there was a red car parked illegally in the square, he could well ask the complainant if it was certain that it wasn’t blue. Or if in fact it wasn’t a tractor.

  This had irritated her at first, but in time he had somehow gained her respect as a police officer and perhaps also as a person; she had learned to tolerate his scepticism. There had even been occasions when they had discussed the merits of ‘healthy scepticism as a method’, as he liked to put it: and at times she had been forced to accept that he was right.

  But only at times. And he never took it to absurd lengths, thank goodness. Despite everything, Chief of Police deKlerk had a wife and three children – there was no doubt at all about that.

  ‘It’s a working hypothesis,’ she said, beginning to collect her papers. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘We don’t even know yet if it is Verlangen.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘It’s fifteen years since that murder at Linden – always assuming it was a murder.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘That old Chief Inspector is a bit obsessed by this business, isn’t he?’

  ‘Obsessed?’ said Moerk. ‘No, I wouldn’t say that. But he has a nose that would make any foxhound you like turn green with envy.’

  ‘A nose?’ said deKlerk. ‘Hmm.’

  Inspector Moerk checked her watch: it was twenty past eleven.

  ‘Anyway,’ said deKlerk, tugging at the other earlobe in order to balance things out. ‘If we really do find Jaan G. Hennan here in Kaalbringen, that would shift the goalposts, of course. But we’d better wait until the dead man has been identified.’

  ‘I’m pretty convinced that it is Verlangen in fact,’ said Moerk, stuffing the half-sorted documents nonchalantly into her briefcase. ‘My female intuition tells me that.’

  ‘Does it tell you anything else?’

  ‘Oh, yes. It tells me for instance that it will be absolutely essential for us to find witnesses. Witnesses who actually saw him here in April. We’ll need pictures in the newspapers, to urge people to get in touch with us, and maybe also—’

  ‘Stop!’ said deKlerk. ‘Not so fast. We’ll think about that if and when we know it really is him. That ought to become clear tomorrow, am I right?’

  ‘If it is Verlangen, that will be confirmed tomorrow, yes. If it’s somebody else we shall have to wait a bit longer.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said deKlerk. ‘But it’s time to lock up now – it’s nearly midnight, for God’s sake.’

  ‘But this is a murder investigation,’ said Moerk.

  He raised an eyebrow, and she could see that she had given herself away – that he realized she was almost enjoying herself.

  I’m
perverse, she thought. But it’s nine years since the last time, so it’s surely not all that odd?

  On the way home she began to recall what had actually happened nine years ago, and she noticed that the hairs on her lower arms were standing on end.

  Detective Intendent Münster had devoted most of Sunday to his children.

  In the morning he had driven his daughter Marieke to a farmhouse just outside Loewingen where there were four horses and two of her friends, and soon afterwards he had left his son Bart outside the Richter Stadium, from where a bus would take him to a football match in Linzhuisen.

  And now, in the afternoon, he had lain down in the double bed and started wrestling with Edwina, aged fifteen months.

  Synn, his wife, was enjoying a day off and he didn’t know where she was. Probably on a beach somewhere with one or two of her friends: it was a fine day with a clear sky and not much wind, and when he had seen her last, in between the trips with his other children, he had caught a glimpse of bath towels and a lunch basket – but part of their agreement was that he wouldn’t ask where she was going.

  Edwina fell asleep at about three, and Münster a quarter of an hour later.

  Edwina was not woken up by the telephone ringing, but her father was.

  Van Veeteren.

  The Chief Inspector.

  On a Sunday afternoon? Münster suddenly felt wider awake than he had done for half a year.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘I do have a moment.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I’m sorry if I’m disturbing your family idyll at the weekend . . .’

  ‘Cut the crap,’ said Münster. ‘What’s it about?’

  I’ve grown bolder as the years have passed, he thought. Much bolder.

  ‘Verlangen,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Maarten Verlangen. I take it you remember who he is?’

  ‘Yes, I remember him,’ said Münster, moving out into the hall so as not to disturb Edwina’s sleep.

  ‘He’s dead,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘They’ve found him at last. Up in Kaalbringen – that business last spring was fire as well as smoke.’

  Münster tried to recall details of the circumstances surrounding Verlangen’s disappearance.

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘And he’s . . . well . . .’

  ‘Murdered, yes. Shot through the head at close range. The body was found in some woods yesterday, and it was identified officially today. I’ve spoken to both his daughter and the police in Kaalbringen – Beate Moerk, if you remember her?’

  ‘Good God,’ said Münster, and he could feel his face flushing as he heard her name. ‘So there’s a link, in other words.’

  ‘I would think so,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘In any case they’re going to need some help up there, and bearing in mind that old case of ours . . . well, I think it would be as well if we were to take it over.’

  We? thought Münster, conducting a rapid analysis of the implications of that little pronoun.

  ‘I mean the Maardam CID of course,’ said Van Veeteren.

  Do you really? Münster thought.

  ‘Of course. I can take it up with Hiller if you like,’ he said. ‘But then, you never know how—’

  ‘I’ve already spoken to him,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘There won’t be any problems.’

  ‘You’ve already spoken to—’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘But it would be as well if the right people were in charge of it, don’t you think?’

  ‘What? The right people? What do you mean by that, Chief—’

  ‘Somebody with a bit of background knowledge. About both G and Kaalbringen. If you follow me?’

  Münster understood all right, but hesitated a few seconds before responding.

  ‘I see what you mean,’ he said eventually. ‘I suppose you’re right. I’d better have a word with Hiller and see what he has to say. I’m up to my neck in quite a lot of other things, but all being well, I suppose . . .’

  The Chief Inspector cleared his throat and Münster paused.

  ‘Hmm, yes, well – you won’t need to. As I already had him on the line, well, you know . . . You’ll be driving up to Kaalbringen tomorrow morning, and you’ll have Rooth with you. Anyway, I’m pleased that it’s you who’ll be in charge.’

  And he hung up. Münster remained standing for quite some time, staring at the telephone. What’s going on? he thought. Didn’t he start by hoping he wasn’t disturbing my peace and quiet? Remarkable.

  Or rather, typical.

  He checked that Edwina was still asleep, then went into the kitchen to brew some black coffee.

  Beate Moerk felt cold.

  And with good reason. She was sitting stark naked on a high, uncomfortable stool; and it could well have been a few degrees warmer in the room.

  ‘That’s enough now,’ she said. ‘I have pains in every single muscle, plus two more that don’t exist.’

  ‘Calm down, my lovely,’ said Franek. ‘Just one more minute – and remember that you are destined to become a part of posterity. Sit still now!’

  ‘Bollocks to posterity! We agreed on half an hour – it must be at least three quarters by now.’

  He peered at her over the top of his easel. Closed one eye and screwed up the other one.

  ‘An advantage of nude models is that they can’t have wrist-watches on,’ he said. ‘But all right, we’ll shut up shop now. Come and have a look at the miracle. I’ll be damned if the outline of your hips wouldn’t tempt a Greek god to descend from Mount Olympus!’

  ‘Rubbish!’ said Moerk, wriggling into her nightgown. ‘Blind paint dauber, he talk through back of nightcap.’

  She walked round his easel, crept under his arm and took a look at the half-finished painting. It was beginning to look rather good, and she liked what he had said about her hips.

  ‘But make no mistake about it, it’s damned uncomfortable on that stool. I hadn’t really appreciated the role of suffering in art until I agreed to be a model for you.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘It can be strenuous, but that’s the point. Sinews and muscles have to be working, and be seen to be doing so – there are far too many nymphs who just lie back and relax.’

  ‘Some people would say that there are far too many naked women’s bodies in art.’

  ‘That’s a misunderstanding,’ he said. ‘It’s a bit like saying that authors should stop using metaphors . . . But maybe they should, in fact?’

  He looked seriously thoughtful, as he often did when a stray thought struck home. He sucked at the handle of a paintbrush and puckered his brow. That’s why I love him, she thought – because he can take everything, absolutely everything, extremely seriously.

  Because he is so genuinely interested in everything apart from himself.

  She tied the belt of her dressing gown. I overestimate him, she thought. But so what? It’ll be good to have a bit to spare when I start to grow tired of him.

  But with a bit of luck that moment was still a long way away. Beate Moerk had met Franek Lapter at a party two months after the notorious Axeman Affair nine years ago, and she had become pregnant the second time they made love. ‘Glad to hear it,’ Franek had said when she told him. ‘We could both have done much worse.’

  They had got married, bought an old house in Limmingerweg on the way to Groonfelt, had their first child and conceived their second within eighteen months. For about the same length of time she had been on leave from her job as an inspector in the Kaalbringen police district. There were those who thought that a good mother ought to stay at home longer with her offspring, but Franek had his studio upstairs and was very reluctant not to be in constant touch with Leon and Myra. Or at least, not for very many hours at a time. So what the hell?

  And now there was a murder to be dealt with again.

  I love my husband and my children, she thought. But I love them even more if I’m allowed to follow up my perverse interests as well.

  ‘You’re a bit obsessed by
that dead body, aren’t you?’ he said as he started washing his paint brushes in the sink. ‘I gather it was that private detective from Maardam – is that right?’

  Beate pulled on a pair of thick woollen stockings, sat up straight and nodded.

  ‘Verlangen.’ she said. ‘Yes, he’s the dead man.’

  ‘And so you and the Klerk bloke are going to have to solve it, are you?’

  ‘Do you think we’re not up to it?’

  He paused for a moment.

  ‘You are. And one genius is enough to solve an equation. The others only need to be on hand to make coffee and not get in the way.’

  ‘An equation?’ wondered Moerk with a laugh. ‘I never managed more than a C in maths when I was at school. But it’s not a matter of equations. It’s more about cleaning out the stables. And besides, we’re going to get some outside help.’

  ‘Outside help? Is it that serious?’

  It dawned on her that while Franek was able to sympathize with the problems of an injured fly, he sometimes found it difficult to assess the significance of more important entities. Perhaps it was a sort of necessity in his make-up. For the sake of balance. For his art.

  The outsider’s perspective, as it was called.

  Nonsense, she thought. I overestimate his world of ideas as well. But that’s par for the course when you’re in love with somebody, isn’t it?

  ‘What do you mean? Surely a murder is serious?’

  He had finished washing his brushes now. He dried his hands on his checked flannel shirt and walked towards her with his arms stretched out wide. When he embraced her, she could hear her ribs creaking.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Can I have another look at your buttocks? I think there was a line that I might not have mastered completely.’

  ‘Grrr,’ she said, and bit his shoulder. ‘I’m glad you’re no longer employing freelance models.’