“OK,” said Moreno. “I have a date at nine, though, and I’d like to have time to powder my nose first.”
“You’d be all right for me with no powder at all,” said deBries.
“Thank you,” said Moreno. “It’s good to know that you don’t ask too much of people.”
“You learn to make the most of whatever you get,” said deBries.
“A gloomy place,” she said as they were driving back through the trees. “Although it would have looked better in those days, no doubt.”
“Sure,” said deBries. “It’s been standing empty for twelve or thirteen years. That leaves its mark…. What’s all this! Have we time for another little chat?”
“A short one,” said Moreno.
DeBries slowed down and stopped beside a man bending down by the side of the road, painting a fence.
“Good evening,” said deBries through the open window. “Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?”
The man straightened his back.
“Good evening,” he said. “Please do. It will be a pleasure to stand upright for a bit.”
DeBries and Moreno got out of the car and shook hands. Claus Czermak had only been living in the blue house for just over a year, it transpired, and he was also too young to have any personal memories of the Verhaven trials. But it was always worthwhile spending a few minutes, just in case.
“We moved here when we had our third son,” he said, gesturing toward the house and garden, where a couple of toddlers were steering a pedal car down a wheelchair ramp built into the steps leading up to the front door. “We thought it was a bit stifling in town. The country air and all that, you know…”
Moreno nodded.
“You don’t work here in the village?”
Czermak shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I have a post at the university. History, the Middle Ages and Byzantium.”
“I see. We’re interested in Leopold Verhaven and his house up there in the forest,” said deBries. “You are his nearest neighbors, so to speak. You and the people opposite…”
“The Wilkersons, yes. We had gathered there was something going on.”
“Exactly,” said deBries. “But I don’t suppose you have anything that could be of interest to us?”
Czermak shook his head.
“I wouldn’t have thought so. We were still on vacation when he came back here last August. We’ve only heard people talking about him. What’s happened?”
“He’s dead,” said deBries. “Mysterious circumstances. But don’t call the newspapers tonight, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Oh dear,” said Czermak. “No, you have my word on that.”
“Thank you for your efforts today,” said deBries as he pulled up outside Constable Moreno’s apartment in Keymer Plejn. “A pity you don’t have time for a glass of something. It’s often productive to sit down in peace and quiet for a while and chew over the impressions we’ve had.”
“Sorry about that,” said Moreno. “I promise to plan things a bit better next time. Aren’t you married, by the way?”
“A little bit,” deBries admitted.
“I thought so. Goodnight!”
She scrambled out of the car. Slammed the door and waved to him from the sidewalk. DeBries sat there for a while, watching her. It’s Saturday tomorrow, he thought. A day off. Damn!
21
Van Veeteren snorted as he finished reading C. P. Jacoby’s summary and analysis of the Beatrice case in the issue of Allgemejne dated Sunday, June 22, 1962. He stabbed angrily at the white button on his bedside table, and after half a minute the night nurse appeared in the doorway.
“I want a beer,” said Van Veeteren.
“This isn’t a restaurant,” said the woman wearily, brushing a strand of hair from her face.
“So I’ve noticed,” said Van Veeteren. “But the fact is that Dr. Boegenmutter, or whatever the hell his name is, has told me to drink a beer or two. It assists the healing process. Stop being awkward and fetch me a bottle.”
“It’s turned midnight. Shouldn’t you go to sleep instead?”
“Sleep? I’m busy with a criminal investigation. You should be damned grateful. I’m after somebody who murdered women. And right now you are obstructing the investigation. Well?”
She sighed and went off, returning after a couple of minutes with a bottle and a glass.
“There’s a good girl,” said Van Veeteren.
She yawned.
“Do you think you can manage to pour it out yourself?”
“I’ll do my best,” Van Veeteren promised. “I’ll ring if I spill anything.”
The cold beer trickling down his throat was most invigorating. He had lain in bed thinking about this moment, trying to imagine the taste and indeed the whole experience while reading through the last four or five newspaper cuttings, and now that it had come, there was no doubt that the actual enjoyment lived up to expectations.
He belched contentedly. Divine nectar, he thought. Let’s see now, what do I know?
Not a lot. A fair amount from the quantative point of view. The newspaper coverage of the first trial had been comprehensive, to say the least. He had only read a small portion, but Münster’s selection seemed to have been well chosen and representative: a wide range of speculation and guesses regarding Verhaven’s character coupled with fairly detailed accounts of court proceedings. And the longer it went on, the more specific the conclusions drawn about the impending verdict.
Guilty. Verhaven must be guilty.
There were not many facts available. Just as he had suspected, the technical proof was rudimentary. Nonexistent, to put it bluntly. The case ought to have depended mainly on circumstantial evidence, but there wasn’t much of that either. Strictly speaking, there was a gaping void in both those areas.
No concrete proof.
Not much in the way of circumstantial evidence pointing toward Verhaven.
Nothing.
But he had been found guilty even so.
After discreet legal proceedings behind the scenes, no doubt, Van Veeteren thought, raising the bottle to his lips. I’d give a lot to have taken part in those.
But what the hell was it that got him convicted? Obviously, the media and vociferous public opinion had created a certain amount of pressure, but surely the machinery didn’t usually succumb so readily to that?
No, there must have been some other reason.
His character.
The kind of man that Leopold Verhaven was. His past. His behavior in court. The overall impression he had made on the jury and the legal bigwigs. That’s what it was all about.
That’s what got him convicted.
Verhaven was an eccentric. Having scrutinized him through the eyes and magnifying glasses of all these journalists, Van Veeteren could hardly come to any other conclusion. He was very much a loner, a man from whom it was the easiest thing in the world to disassociate oneself.
An odd man out.
A murderer? It was not difficult to take the short step from the former judgment to the latter, that was something Van Veeteren had learned over many long years; and once you had taken that step, it was not easy to retract it.
And the role?
Was that the key? The strange circumstance that practically every journalist had homed in on. The fact that Verhaven didn’t seem uncomfortable with the role of accused. On the contrary. He seemed to enjoy sitting in the dock with all that attention focused on him. Not that he had strutted or swaggered, but nevertheless: There was something about the way he conducted himself, a solitary and forceful actor playing the role of the tragic hero. That was how he was perceived, and that was how he had wanted to be perceived.
Something of that sort, in any case.
Was that the reason he was convicted?
If only I’d been there and seen him, I would have had no doubt, Van Veeteren thought as he emptied the bottle.