“She eased her conscience in both directions?”
“That’s one way of putting it, yes. You might think she ought to have kept quiet altogether instead. That would have saved one life, at least. But people tend to get a bit obsessed by the truth.”
“What do you mean?” asked Münster.
Van Veeteren downed the rest of his beer.
“The truth can be a heavy burden to bear,” he said. “It seems impossible to bear it alone in the long run. It would be good, though, if people could learn not to pass it on any old way.”
Münster pondered for a while.
“I’ve never thought of it like that before,” he said, looking out the window. “But there’s a lot of truth in it, of course. He doesn’t seem to have been overcome by panic, though.”
“No,” said Van Veeteren with a sigh. “We may need to take some special measures in this case. But you can go home now. I’ll sit here for a while and do a bit of thinking.”
Münster hesitated.
“I hope you’ll let me know if I can do anything else to help. I take it the case hasn’t been reopened?”
“It’s closed and boarded up,” said Van Veeteren. “Anyway, thanks.”
Münster left the bar, and as he crossed the street on the way to his car, he found himself feeling sorry for the chief inspector again. That was the second time in a short period—only a month or so—so perhaps there was some truth in what people say:
The older they get, the more human they seem to appear.
Mind you, they were talking about mountain gorillas, weren’t they?
39
The Club’s premises were in a basement at the end of a narrow alley that started at Cronin Square and finished with a fireproof gable. On all maps of the town, and according to the filthy and barely readable nameplate above Wildt’s antiquarian bookshop, it was called Zuygers Steeg. But it was always known locally as Butcher’s Alley, after an unusually brutal murder at the end of the 1890s, when body parts of two prostitutes were found scattered over practically the full twenty yards comprising the stunted street. The parts were found by a young chaplain from the cathedral, who had to be locked away in the Majorna asylum in Willemsburg. The murderer was never caught, despite a large-scale hunt.
Van Veeteren seldom managed to get as far as the Club without being reminded of the story, and he didn’t succeed in doing so this evening either.
Perhaps things were worse in the old days, despite everything, he thought as he ducked to avoid hitting his head on the lintel and entered the lugubrious vault.
Mahler was sitting furthest in as usual, in the secluded corner under the Dürer print, and he had already set up the pieces. Van Veeteren sat down with a sigh.
“Oh dear,” said Mahler, digging into his tousled beard with his fingers. “Was it as bad as that?”
“What?” said Van Veeteren.
“What! Being butchered, of course! The green men going about their bloody business.”
“Oh, that,” said Van Veeteren. “A mere bagatelle.”
Mahler looked puzzled for a moment.
“Then what the hell’s worrying you? You’ve been resurrected, early summer is at its colorful peak, the whole of nature is squirming with pleasure at the celebration of exuberant life that is almost upon us. What the devil do you mean by coming here and sighing?”
“I have a problem,” said Van Veeteren, opening with his queen’s pawn.
“I have a thousand,” said Mahler. “Cheers, and welcome back to the world of the living!”
They drank, and Mahler pored over the chessboard. The chief inspector lit a cigarette and waited. Of all the people he had ever played chess with since he started as a teenager, he had never come across a single opponent who played in the way Mahler did. After an introductory period of intense concentration that could last as long as ten or twelve minutes—before the first move, that is—he would then play more than thirty moves without thinking for more than a minute altogether. Then, before the endgame was embarked upon, he generally allowed himself another in-depth analysis lasting for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, then finished off the game at breakneck speed—irrespective of whether he was playing for a win, a draw or an honorable defeat.
He could give no plausible reason for his method, apart from maintaining that it was a question of rhythm.
“Sometimes it can feel that making the move at the right time is more important than the quality of the move itself,” he had maintained. “If you see what I mean.”
Van Veeteren hadn’t the slightest idea what he meant.
“It’s the same with poems,” the old poet had revealed. “I often sit staring into space for ages, maybe half an hour or more—then I pick up my pen and write down the whole poem. As quick as a flash, there mustn’t be a pause.”
“What goes on inside your head, then?” Van Veeteren wanted to know. “While you’re charging your batteries?”
Mahler had no idea either, it seemed.
“I daren’t try to analyze it,” he said. “Certain things will not tolerate introspection. That kills them off.”
Van Veeteren thought about that as he took a swig of beer and waited for Mahler’s move.
Action without thinking, he thought.
Is that what it looked like?
Perhaps there are a few points of contact after all?
“Well?” said Mahler, when they had agreed on a draw after less than forty-five minutes. “What’s the matter?”
“A murderer,” said Van Veeteren.
“I thought you were on sick leave for the rest of this month?”
“I am,” said Van Veeteren. “It’s just that I find it hard to turn my back on things. And also to turn a blind eye.”
“What’s the problem with this murderer, then?”
“I can’t nail him.”
“Do you know who he is?”
Van Veeteren nodded.
“But you have no proof?”
“Not a thing.”
Mahler leaned back and lit a cigar.
“It can’t be the first time you’ve been in this position?”
“I can usually manage to shoo ’em in.”
Mahler burst out laughing.
“Shoo ’em in! I like it! And why can’t you do that this time, then?”
Van Veeteren sighed.
“Does the name Leopold Verhaven mean anything to you?”
Mahler turned serious.
“Verhaven? Yes, of course. A notorious murderer. Of women. Wasn’t he murdered himself, or something of the sort? I read about it in the paper not long ago.”
“He was innocent,” said Van Veeteren.
“Verhaven was innocent?”
“Yes.”
“But he’s been in jail for…God knows how long.”
“Twenty-four years,” said Van Veeteren.
“He’s been in jail for that damn length of time, and you’re claiming that he’s innocent?”
Van Veeteren nodded.
“Was innocent. He’s dead, as you said. And it seems that it’s not only the real murderer who would like to draw a line under the whole business, if you follow me….”
Mahler said nothing for some seconds.
“Huh,” he said eventually. He drew on his cigar and spilled ash into his beard. “I think I get it. The big shots?”
Van Veeteren shrugged.
“It’s not all that bad, I hope, but however you look at it, there’s no chance of getting proceedings under way unless we’re standing on solid ground. Very solid ground.”
“But can’t you dig out some proof? Isn’t that what usually happens? You know who did it, but you have to work your butts off to turn the knowledge into proof, afterward? I thought that was how the police usually went about things.”
“Yes, you’re right, of course,” said Van Veeteren. “But it looks pretty hopeless in his case. Time has run out on the first murder; we’re not allowed to open it again. And if the second one is to be reopened, we either have to produce cast-iron proof more solid than the defenses at Fort Knox, or he has to confess and stick with that confession. And we’re nowhere near either of those setups.”