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 Heidelbluum 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.