He paused briefly. Jahrens stubbed out his cigarette and gazed out to sea again.
“Would you mind telling me if there are any details in my reconstruction that are not correct?” said Van Veeteren, leaning back in his chair.
Jahrens said nothing. Sat there without moving, but showed no sign of nervous tension or irritation.
“So I was right from start to finish? I thought as much,” said Van Veeteren with a satisfied smile. “Maybe you’d like to continue yourself, nevertheless? How you raped her and strangled her. Or was it the other way round?”
“I shall be informing your superiors about this conversation,” said Jahrens after a few seconds. “First thing tomorrow morning.”
“Excellent,” said Van Veeteren. “A drop more whiskey?”
Without a word, Jahrens picked up the bottle and refilled his glass. Van Veeteren raised his glass as if to toast him, but his host wasn’t even looking at him. They drank in silence.
“Number two,” said Van Veeteren. “Marlene Nietsch.”
Jahrens raised his hand.
“No, thank you,” he said. “You’ve gone far enough. You can go to hell with your damned fantasies. I’ve better things to do than to…”
“That would never occur to me,” Van Veeteren cut him short. “I’m staying where I am.”
Jahrens snorted and for the first time looked to be of two minds. About time, Van Veeteren thought.
“All right. Either you give me your word that you’ll be out of here in half an hour at the most, or I’ll call the police right now.”
“I am the police,” said Van Veeteren. “Wouldn’t it be better if you tried to contact a lawyer? A good lawyer? You still wouldn’t have a chance, but it generally feels better if you’ve done everything in your power, believe you me.”
Jahrens lit another cigarette, but made no move to head for the telephone. Van Veeteren stood up and looked out to sea. The sun had sunk below the horizon some considerable time ago, and blue twilight hovered over the town. He stood there for about a minute with his hands on the low railing, waiting for Jahrens to make a move. But he didn’t.
Just sat there in the basket chair. Took a sip of whiskey now and again, apparently unconcerned by the presence of Van Veeteren.
Perhaps he had never been worried? Not even for one moment?
Better press on, thought Van Veeteren, sitting down opposite him once more.
He poured out the last drops from the whiskey bottle and held it out over the table.
“It doesn’t go very far,” he said, and Jahrens gave a laugh.
It was dark now. The little lamp in the corner of the balcony was not strong enough to reach very far either. For the last half hour Arnold Jahrens had been little more than a motionless outline. A dark silhouette, with his face in shadow, making it impossible for Van Veeteren to see what effect his words and all his efforts were having. Assuming they had any at all.
“So you’re not going to tell me where you interred his head? That’s a little shameful, don’t you think? I fear you will not end up very high in Dante’s inferno, I suppose you’re aware of that?”
He was expressing himself rather more formally; hard to say why, perhaps it was to do with the alcohol and the darkness.
Jahrens said nothing.
“How do you think your daughter is going to react?”
“What to? To your laughable insinuations?”
“Laughable? Do you really think she’ll laugh?”
Jahrens burst out laughing again, as if he wanted to be the one who judged what was an appropriate reaction.
“Your wife was able to refrain from laughter, in any case.”
Jahrens snorted instead. There was a distinct trace of tipsiness in it, Van Veeteren thought, and he decided to pin his faith on that judgment and that circumstance. Now’s the moment, he thought. Make or break. He was beginning to feel less than clear in the head himself, in fact; they had certainly drunk a great deal, and there was a limit to the time available.
“Would you like to check on that?” he asked.
“On what?”
“How your daughter reacts to all this?”
“What the hell do you mean?”
Van Veeteren pulled the little pin out of his lapel and held it up between his thumb and index finger.
“Do you know what this is?”
Jahrens shook his head.
“A transmitter. Just as you guessed at the start.”
“So what, damn it?” said Jahrens, interrupting him. “You know very well that I haven’t confirmed the tiniest detail of all this crap you’ve been coming out with.”
“That’s what you think,” said Van Veeteren. “Perhaps you’ll change your mind when you hear the tape. That’s what usually happens.”
“Crap,” said Jahrens, fumbling for another cigarette. “What’s this got to do with my daughter? Are you going to play it for her, or what the hell do you mean?”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Van Veeteren, carefully replacing the pin in his lapel.
“Won’t be necessary? And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“She’s already heard it all.”
Jahrens dropped his cigarette and gaped. Van Veeteren stood up.
“These two rooms,” he said, pointing with both hands. “Number 52 and number 54…”
Jahrens took hold of the chair arms and started to rise to his feet.
“What the devil…?”
“Three police officers are sitting in room 52 with a tape recorder. They have noted every single word of our conversation. Haven’t missed a detail, I can assure you. In the other room…”
He pointed.
“…in the other room are your daughter, Andrea, and her husband.”
“What the hell…?”
Van Veeteren went over to the railing and pointed again.
“If you come here you can catch a glimpse of them, if you lean out a little bit….”
Arnold Jahrens needed no second invitation, and it was soon all over. Even so, Van Veeteren knew that those brief seconds would haunt him through all the dark nights of the rest of his life.
Perhaps even longer.
When he came out to the car, he could feel that he was much more drunk than he had thought, and there was obviously no question of him sitting behind the wheel. He took off the false beard and wig, put them in a plastic carrier bag and pushed it under the driver’s seat for the time being. Then he nestled down under the blanket on the backseat and wished himself a good and dreamless night.
Five minutes later he was sleeping like a log, and by the time the ambulance and the police cars started arriving, he was beyond reach of the sirens and the raised voices.
Nobody paid any attention to the slightly battered Opel, somewhat carelessly parked in the darkness two blocks north of Florian’s Guesthouse. Why should they?
43
“Have you seen this?” asked Jung, handing over the newspaper. “Wasn’t it you who interviewed him?”
Rooth looked at the photograph.
“Yes, it was. What the hell’s happened to him?”
“Fell from the fifth floor. Or maybe jumped. Accident or suicide, that’s the question. What was he like?”
Rooth shrugged.
“Much like everybody else. Quite pleasant, I seem to recall. Served up coffee, in any case.”
Reinhart sat down opposite Münster in the canteen.
“Good morning,” he said. “How are you?”
“Now what are you after?” said Münster.