lic with an interest in sport that Leopold Verhaven is one of our biggest stars on the track. But few people can have expected this incredibly talented athlete from Obern, still only 22 years old, to start breaking records as early as this summer.
But he fooled us all, and how pleased we are to be fooled! Sunday’s brilliant performance in the Verhejm stadium and the impressive new record for the 1,500 meters was followed last night, a marvelous evening of sport at Willemsroo, by a further reduction to an excellent 3 minutes 41.5 seconds, and it should be stressed that Verhaven was forced to run the last 600 meters out on his own, in solitary majesty.
None of the others in the high-quality field was able to keep up when he turned on the heat after about half the race. His easy, lightning-fast stride, the apparently effortless grace and flow characteristic of his style, the rhythm and his masterly tactical brain. .
Van Veeteren skipped the rest. Tried to go back in his memory and find himself during that August more than thirty-five years ago. But the best he could do was to establish that it must have been the summer vacation in between two of those easily confused university terms. Before he burned his bridges and threw himself wholeheartedly into police college. Probably a summer job at Kummermann’s, that damn and dusty warehouse, or-much preferably-a week spent by the sea with his uncles.
Ah well. He moved on to the next clip. Almost a year later.
May 18, 1959. Three columns in Telegraaf with a picture of the winner crossing the line in another fifteen-hundred-meter race. Obviously his favorite distance-the “blue riband,” isn’t that what they called it? Chest thrust forward to break the tape as soon as possible, longish hair fluttering in the wind, mouth open and eyes more or less unseeing. .
“Verhaven Heading for the European Record?” was the
headline this time. Van Veeteren read:
3 minutes 40.5 seconds! That is Verhaven’s new record for the 1,500 meters, set last night after a brilliant race at the international meeting at the Kunderplatz. Shortly t h e r e t u r n
after the 800-meter mark our new king of the middle
distance waved good-bye to the rest of the field, and after two magnificent solo laps posted a time that has only been bettered this year by the Frenchman Jazy and the Hungarian Rozsavolgy. Verhaven’s time is the sixth best ever, and there is no doubt that the incredibly talented 23-year-old from Obern will be one of our strongest cards at the Rome Olympics next year. At least, as far as track events are concerned, where our national team seems to be lagging way behind the British, the French and the outstanding Americans. At yesterday’s meeting no fewer than. . May 1959, Van Veeteren thought, putting the page to one side.
Three months before the bubble burst, that is.
He took the next article, and there he was already. The scandal had happened, and this time it was also front-page news:
“Verhaven-a Cheat!” Large bold type over four columns; underneath it a blurred picture that, on closer inspection, appeared to be a man being carried away on a stretcher. In rather tumultuous circumstances, judging by appearances.
Van Veeteren read the indignant article on the five-thousand-meter race in the middle of August 1959, in which Verhaven was well in the lead with only just over two laps to go-and a probable European record-but he suddenly collapsed as he emerged from the southern bend at the Richter Stadium in Maardam.
He checked the date: Yes, the article was written two days after the race. When everything had been revealed.
When the doping and the illegal payments had all come to light.
When the fairy tale was over.
Verhaven-the cheat.
Was this the background to Verhaven-the murderer? wondered Van Veeteren.
And to Verhaven-the double murderer?
Was there a link, a connection, with one thing leading to another? Not automatically, of course, but nevertheless a sort of cause and effect. Was the murderer already there as a seed, an embryo, in the cheat? Was it even legitimate to ask such questions?
He could feel weariness creeping up on him again. He smoothed out the slightly wavy sheets of paper and put them back in the envelope.
What was the point of thinking along these lines? he asked himself. Why was his brain following up these dark ideas?
Whether he wanted to or not. Was there really nothing more reliable that he could turn his attention to?
If he wanted to claim that he was now in charge of this investigation?
He listened for a while to the pigeons cooing away somewhere outside the window. His thoughts wandered off on their own for a few minutes and contemplated rather vaguely peace symbols, the disintegration of Europe and ambiguous nationalism, before coming back to the matter at hand again.
For-the bottom line was, what to do about the suspicion he had?
The persistent idea that kept on nagging away.
Wasn’t that what he really ought to be trying to find evidence for?
How easy and simple it was for a distant observer to draw the same would-be-wise conclusions. Cheat-murderer. Build these putative bridges over imagined chasms. Look for connections where no connections exist or are needed. And come to that, one could ask just how serious the cheating had been.
Did it really carry the weight and significance given to it by the gods and gurus of sports at the time, the innocent 1950s?
Or budding 1960s. He found it hard to believe. Did the guy run any faster because he was being paid? The amphetamine and whatever else probably gave him a bit of a boost, one can assume, but would that kind of thing nowadays lead to a life ban?
He didn’t know. It was not his field, certainly not, but Rooth or Heinemann would be bound to know about such things.
Whatever, the question remained: How much had Verhaven-the cheat-weighed against him when he progressed to being Verhaven-the murderer?
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 allo-cated 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?”