In other people’s eyes, that is. Journalists’. The man in the street’s. The police’s, the judiciary’s and the jury members’. The eyes of those who condemned him.
Judge Heidelbluum’s?
That was a question worth thinking about, yes, indeed.
He clasped his hands over his tender wound, closed his eyes and decided to let his dreams take care of it for the time being.
18
After a certain amount of lobbying, deBries had been allocated Detective Constable Ewa Moreno as a partner. For the forthcoming fieldwork, at least, and when they set off for Kaustin in the late afternoon, taking the pretty, meandering route by the lake, he had the impression that she was not too displeased by the arrangement.
And she could certainly have done worse. Surely it was permissible to allow oneself that degree of self-esteem? DeBries came to a halt outside the school and they stayed in the car for a while, comparing the hand-drawn map with reality.
“Gellnacht first?” Moreno suggested, nodding in the direction of a house. “It’s over there.”
“Your wish is my command,” said deBries, engaging first gear.
Irmgaard Gellnacht had laid a table for coffee in the arbor behind her large clapboard house. She beckoned them to sit down on a yellow porch swing, and she took one of the two old easy chairs.
“The evenings are lovely at this time of year,” she said. “You have to try to be outside as much as possible.”
“Early summer is the prettiest time,” said Ewa Moreno. “All these flowers.”
“Do you have a garden?” wondered Mrs. Gellnacht.
“I’m afraid not. But I hope to have one eventually.”
DeBries cleared his throat discreetly.
“Ah, forgive me,” said Mrs. Gellnacht. “That wasn’t what we’re supposed to talk about, of course. Do help yourselves, by the way.”
“Thank you,” said Moreno. “Did you grow the rhubarb in this pie yourself?”
“So you were the same age, in other words?” said deBries.
“Not quite. I’m one year older. Born in thirty-five. Leopold in thirty-six. But we were in the same class even so. The village school combined three age streams per class in those days—I think they still do, in fact—so I remember him all right. You don’t forget five years in the same school so easily.”
“What impression did you have of him?”
“A loner,” said Irmgaard Gellnacht, without hesitation. “Why are you so interested in him? Is it true what they are saying, that he’s dead?”
No doubt it will be in tomorrow’s papers anyway, deBries thought.
“We’d prefer not to comment on that, Mrs. Gellnacht,” he explained, holding a finger to his lips. “And we’d be grateful if you are discreet about our little chat.”
He thought that sounded a bit like a veiled threat, which was exactly what he had intended.
“No doubt he had some friends?” said Moreno.
Mrs. Gellnacht thought that over.
“No, I don’t think he did. Well, in the first year or two, perhaps. He used to go around a little with Pieter Wolenz, if I’m not mistaken, but then they moved. To Linzhuisen. I don’t think there was anybody after that.”
“Was he teased at all?” asked Moreno. “Bullied, as they say nowadays.”
She thought again.
“No,” she said eventually. “Not really. We had a sort of respect for him, despite everything, all of us. You tried not to fall out with him, in any case. He could get very angry, I recall. He had a fiery temperament underneath that silent and sullen surface.”
“How did it make itself felt?”
“Excuse me?”
“This fiery temperament. What did he do?”
“Oh, I don’t really know,” she said hesitantly. “Some pupils were a bit afraid of him, there were a few fights, and he was strong, really strong, even though he certainly wasn’t especially big or powerful.”
“Can you remember any particular occasion?”
“No…Wait a moment, yes, in fact. I remember he once threw a boy out a window when he lost his temper.”
“Out a window?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t as dangerous as it sounds. It was the ground floor, so it turned out all right.”
“I see.”
“Mind you, there was a bicycle rack outside, so he did injure himself slightly even so….”
DeBries nodded.
“What was the boy’s name?” asked Moreno.
“I can’t remember,” said Irmgaard Gellnacht. “Maybe it was one of the Leisse brothers. Or Kollerin, he’s the local butcher now. Yes, I think it was him.”
DeBries changed tack.
“Beatrice Holden, do you remember her?”
“Yes, of course,” said Mrs. Gellnacht, sitting bolt upright in the easy chair.
“And how would you describe her?”
“I’d rather not. Don’t speak ill of the dead, as they say.”
“But if we were to lean on you a little?”
She gave a quick smile.
“Well, in that case,” she said. “Beatrice Holden was a slut. I think that description fits her rather well.”
“Was she a slut even when she was at school?” wondered Moreno.
“From the very start. Don’t think I’m an old prude just because I’m saying this. Beatrice was a terribly vulgar person. The cheapest kind. She had the looks, and she used them to wrap men round her little finger. Or boys, in those days.”
“They were in love with her?”
“The whole lot. Teachers as well, I think. She was young and unmarried. It was really awful, in fact.”
“She moved away from here later, didn’t she?”
Mrs. Gellnacht nodded.
“Ran off with a man when she was barely seventeen. Lived in two or three different places, I think. Came back with a child a few years later.”
“A baby?”
“Yes. A girl. Her mother looked after it. Beatrice’s mother, that is.”
“When? Was that a long time before she was mixed up with Verhaven?”
“No, not all that long. I’d say it was round about 1960, that was roughly the same time as he moved back here. She and the girl moved in with her mother, in any case, only for about six months, or thereabouts. The father had gone to sea, people said, but nobody has ever seen him. Not then, not later. Well, after a few months she moved in with Verhaven, up at The Big Shadow.”
“The Big Shadow?”
“Yes, that’s what it’s usually called. The Big Shadow. Don’t ask me why.”
DeBries made a note.
“What about the daughter?” asked Moreno. “Did she take the girl with her?”
“Oh no,” replied Mrs. Gellnacht firmly. “Certainly not. The girl stayed with Grandma. Perhaps that was best, in view of what happened. She turned out all right.”
“What was the relationship like?” asked deBries. “Verhaven and Beatrice, I mean.”
Mrs. Gellnacht hesitated before answering.
“I don’t know,” she said. “There was an awful lot of gossip about it afterward, of course. Some people reckoned it was inevitable from the start that it would end up like it did. Or that it would go wrong, at least; but I don’t know. It’s always so easy for people to understand everything when they have the key in their hands and know what actually happened. Don’t you think?”
“No doubt about it,” said deBries.
“Quite a few things happened, in fact, before he killed her. I think they drank pretty heavily, but there again he was a good worker. Worked hard, and no doubt earned quite a bit from his chickens. But they certainly used to fight. Nobody can deny that.”
“Yes, so we understand,” said Moreno.
There was a pause while Mrs. Gellnacht served more coffee. Then deBries leaned forward and asked the most important question of all.
“What was it like during the time before Verhaven was arrested? After they’d found Beatrice’s body, that is. Those ten days, or however long it was? Can you remember anything about that?”