And that Denbourke was certainly not the ideal lawyer to conduct your defense; but that wasn’t exactly news.
Moreover-and at this point Van Veeteren had been forced to grab hold of the bed frame in order not to hit the roof- there had been no less than three other witnesses who claimed to have seen Verhaven’s van on its way from the Covered Market, but none of them had seen a woman inside it. What had happened to these witnesses in the final summing up was a mystery.
Deplorable! muttered Van Veeteren, and spat out the rest of the toothpick onto the quilt. Had Mort really been involved in this? And Heidelbluum?
He knew from bitter experience that the others, the lay-men, the semi-educated servants of the law, could turn a blind eye to practically anything; but that the judge and the chief inspector could allow something like this to happen, that was a rude awakening. Difficult to digest, to say the least. It was true of course that it was no longer Mort’s responsibility once the case reached the courtroom-but even so?
Then again, Mort hadn’t been his old self during his last years in harness. Perhaps that was it; perhaps he ought to make some allowances.
And Heidelbluum had been nearly seventy at the time.
I hope they get rid of me before I lose as much sting as that, he thought. But maybe I’ll die before I get that gaga? A blessing devoutly to be wished, I suppose.
But what could one say about this case as a whole? The bottom line was that he’d sat there in the dock and acted like the guiltiest of the guilty, that damned Verhaven.
Apart from denying that he’d done it, of course.
Incomprehensible, decided Detective Chief Inspector Van Veeteren. And there’s nothing I hate as much as things I don’t understand!
He swung one leg over the side of the bed and sat up. After a moment of dizziness he found himself standing on the cold floor. It felt good to be able to move under one’s own steam again. No denying that.
Even if his frailty and tendency to grow dizzy still scared him a bit. No denying that either.
Still, I’m going home tomorrow, no matter what, he thought as he closed the bathroom door. Then sure as hell I’ll soon sort out this mess!
But when he had flopped down onto the cold seat, it dawned on him that it might not be all that easy.
The fact was, he already had all the known facts with him here in hospital. Bundle after bundle of newspaper reports.
Trial transcripts. Tape recordings of the investigation updates, and detailed reports from Munster.
Surely things couldn’t look all that different out there in the real world?
Another good question.
“Let’s go and sit in the cafe instead,” David Cupperman had whispered, ushering him out the door.
Now that they were sitting in a secluded corner of the bar, enveloped in the smell of cooking fat, he looked much calmer, Jung felt. It didn’t take very long to explain why.
“I didn’t want the wife to get involved,” explained Cupperman. “She’s a bit sensitive, and she knows nothing about this business.”
Jung nodded and held out his pack of cigarettes.
“No thanks. I’ve given up. Thanks to the missus,” he added, with a slightly apologetic smile.
Jung lit a cigarette.
“You don’t need to worry,” he said. “We’re just calling on a few people and asking a couple of routine questions, that’s all.
Maybe you’ve seen in the papers that Leopold Verhaven has been murdered?”
“Yes.”
Cupperman nodded and contemplated his coffee cup.
“We understand you lived with Beatrice Holden for some time in Ulming. When was that? The end of the fifties, was it?”
Cupperman sighed. It seemed quite obvious that if there was anything in his life that this worryingly prim and proper man regretted, it was that unfortunate affair in his youth.
“Nineteen fifty-eight,” he said. “We met in ’57, and moved in together a few months later. She was pregnant. . Well, then we lived together until February the following year. It wasn’t my child.”
“Really?” said Jung, trying to sound as surprised as he could.
“We. . she had a daughter, Christine, we called her; she had a daughter in August 1958; but as I said, the father was another man.”
“When did you find that out?”
“When she was five months old. He came to visit, and
when he’d left, she told me the whole story.”
“Oh, shit,” Jung said before he could stop himself. “Excuse me, but it can’t have been very pleasant for you?”
“No,” said Cupperman. “It wasn’t exactly amusing. I left her that same evening.”
“That same evening?” Jung asked.
“I just threw a few things into a bag. Took the train.”
He fell silent. Jung thought for a while. Where did you go? was the obvious question, but perhaps that wasn’t so important.
“What about your daughter?” he asked instead. “Her daughter, that is. It must have been hard to leave a child you had thought was your own?”
But Cupperman didn’t reply. He just stared down at the table, biting his lip.
“You hadn’t had any suspicions at all?”
Cupperman shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I ought to have done, of course. But I was young and inexperienced. That was the top and bottom of it.”
“Did you ever meet her again? Afterward, that is?”
“No.”
“Not Christine either?”
“I went to visit her in Kaustin. After the murder. But only once. She was four, living with her grandmother. Beatrice’s mother. She didn’t seem to want anything to do with me, the grandmother I mean, so there didn’t seem to be much point.”
“I see,” said Jung. “And the father? The real father, that is?
Do you know anything about him?”
Cupperman shook his head again.
“He went to sea, I think. I never saw him again.”
“And Beatrice didn’t meet him, after you’d left her?”
“How should I know?”
No, thought Jung after he’d taken leave of David Cupperman. If the police haven’t managed to track down Claus Fritze after thirty years, it would be a bit much to expect his poor cuckolded rival to have done so.
Rooth rang the bell and the door opened so fast that he had to jump backward to avoid being hit by it. Arnold Jahrens had been expecting him, that was obvious.
“Mr. Jahrens?”
“Come in.”
He was tall and powerful and looked at least ten years younger than the sixty-five he was. Or was it sixty? It doesn’t matter anyway, he decided and sat down on the chair provided at the kitchen table.
“Well,” said Jahrens. “I expect it’s about Verhaven again.
And Miss Holden.”
“Exactly,” said Rooth. “I take it you know what’s happened?”
“I’ve read about it in the papers,” said Jahrens, gesturing toward a corner where he evidently collected them in a pile.
Both Neuwe Blatt and Telegraaf, as far as Rooth could see.
“I bet you have,” said Rooth. “To be honest with you, we’re groping around in the dark; and so we’re doing a bit of stock-taking, you might say. Having a chat with everybody who’s been in contact with them and the case, in one way or another.”
“I’m with you,” said Jahrens, serving coffee. “Sugar?”
“Three spoons,” said Rooth.
“Three?”