“Did I say three? I meant one and a half.”
Jahrens burst out laughing.
“I’ve plenty of sugar,” he explained. “You can have three damned spoonfuls if you like.”
“Thanks,” said Rooth. “Anyway, I don’t want to keep you longer than necessary, so I’ll come straight to the point. You used to be a neighbor of Verhaven’s. When did you move away from there, by the way?”
“Nineteen eighty-five,” said Jahrens. “We didn’t have anybody who could take over the farm, and rather than wear ourselves out we decided to spend our twilight years in town. It’s made quite a difference, in fact.”
“Your wife. .?” asked Rooth.
“She died two years ago.”
“I’m sorry about that. Anyway, down to business. I’d like you to tell me what you made of the pair Leopold Verhaven and Beatrice Holden. You must have seen quite a bit of them, and it was you she came to the night before she was murdered, is that right?”
“Yes, of course. You couldn’t avoid noticing a few things,”
said Jahrens. “And yes, she came to us all right. Why are you asking, by the way? Surely you don’t think he was innocent?
They seem to be hinting at that in the Telegraaf. . .”
“We don’t know,” Rooth admitted. “What we do know is that somebody’s killed him. There must be a reason, and until we know what it is, we have to take every possibility into account.”
“I follow you,” said Jahrens, fishing a cookie out of his cup with the aid of a spoon. “You could say they were at each other’s throats, all the time. Not many people were surprised by what happened. . of us in the village, I mean. I’m not saying we thought he’d do her in; but they weren’t especially nice to each other.”
“We’ve gathered that,” said Rooth. “What happened that night when she came and knocked on your door?”
“I must have described that at least fifty times,” said Jahrens.
“But not recently, I don’t think,” said Rooth. “Just one more time; I expect you know it off by heart anyway.”
Jahrens laughed again.
“All right,” he said. “There’s not much to tell. I was woken up by somebody knocking on the glass panel of the front door. I put on a pair of trousers and went downstairs to open up, and there she was. She could have just come in and bedded down on the sofa without waking us up, in fact-we never locked the front door. It was the same all over the village, come to that: Nobody bothered to lock themselves in. It’s a bit different here in town, I can tell you. Anyway, she was standing there, shivering, and she asked if she could come in and sleep on our sofa. That damn bastard Verhaven had beaten her up, she said, and she was going to report him to the police next morning.”
“Was she drunk?”
“Fairly, but I’ve seen worse. Obviously, I asked if we could do anything for her-she had a black eye, all swollen, and a few other bruises; but she wouldn’t hear of it. All she wanted was to sleep, she said, so I let her go and lie down on the sofa. I fetched a blanket and a pillow, that’s all. And poured her a glass of water. Then I went back to bed. It was gone three.”
“Hmm,” said Rooth. “Was that all?”
“Yes,” said Jahrens. “She woke up at about nine the next morning, but when I reminded her that she was going to call the police she turned all insolent and told me to mind my own business. And then she left. Didn’t even say thank you.”
“A well-brought-up lady,” said Rooth.
“Very,” said Jahrens. “Would you like some more cookies? I see they’re all gone.”
“No thanks,” said Rooth, and thought for a few seconds.
“I can’t really think of any more questions to ask you,” he said. “Is there anything else you can add, that might be of use to us?”
Jahrens leaned back on his chair and gazed up at the ceiling.
“No,” he said. “Not a thing.”
“But you think it was Verhaven who killed her?”
“Absolutely,” said Jahrens. “There are a lot of things in this life that I’m doubtful about, but not that.”
“No, when all’s said and done, it could well be as you say,”
said Rooth, getting to his feet. “Many thanks.”
We’re all mad, no doubt about it, he thought when he
emerged into the courtyard.
Who the hell was it who’d written that?
After another day in Kaustin, deBries and Moreno turned up at Kraus’s so late that they couldn’t find a quiet corner in the bar. DeBries tried to do a quick calculation of how much cash he had in his wallet-yet again cursing his obstinate refusal to get himself a credit card-and decided he wasn’t too badly off.
“Let’s go to the restaurant instead,” he suggested. “Can I treat you to a bite to eat?”
“All right,” said Moreno, taking another look around. “I don’t think we’d be able to do much in the way of chewing over our impressions in here. But if you treat me, I’ll treat you-that’s a condition.”
Excellent, thought deBries.
“We’ll see about that,” he said, opening the glass door leading to the more substantial area.
“Well,” said Moreno when they’d had their bite to eat and ordered another bottle and the cheese board. “What do you reckon about today, then?”
“Nice weather,” said deBries. “You look a bit more tanned, I think.”
“Every little bit helps,” said Moreno, taking her notebook from her purse. “Shall we take them in order? We ought to form some sort of judgments, after all.”
She looked at the names:
Uleczka Willmot
Katrina Berenskaya
Maria Hess
“Three old women,” said deBries. “With walking sticks. Well, I’d say the odds against were a thousand to one, roughly; but I suppose we can’t write any of them off until we’ve checked their alibis. Mind you, it’s a long way to Ulmentahl. That visitor must have taken all day to get there and back. If she came from Kaustin, that is.”
“If she did, yes.”
“Hard to say,” said deBries.
“Very,” said Moreno. “A thousand to one? Yes, I suppose that’s about right.”
The waiter brought the cheese board, and deBries topped up their glasses.
“What about a motive?” he said after a while. “Can you see any of these old dears having the slightest whiff of a motive? If there’s any point in all this, the visitor must have known the identity of the real murderer. I don’t think our three seemed to be particularly well informed on that matter.”
“I can’t understand why she should want to keep it to herself,” said Moreno. “If she really wanted to tell Verhaven who the murderer was, there’s surely no sensible reason for being unwilling to admit to it afterward. Or is there?”
“God only knows,” said deBries, polishing a grape on the tablecloth. “No, I can’t make head nor tail of this, swear to God.”
Moreno sighed.
“Nor can I,” she said. “It all seems a bit odd, as far as I can see. All we know for a fact is that Verhaven was visited by a woman calling herself Anna Schmidt on June fifth, 1992.
We’ve no idea who she really was or what they talked about.
We’re jumping to quite a few conclusions if we think along these lines: First we claim that the visit had to do with the murder. Then we say the reason was that she wanted to tell Verhaven who the real murderer was. Then we assume she lives in Kaustin. . There are some weak links in that chain.”
“Besides,” said deBries, “we’re not even a hundred percent certain that it’s Verhaven who’s dead. And we’re definitely not sure that he was actually innocent of the crimes he’s been in prison for. No, if we took this to the public prosecutor, he’d no doubt laugh us out of court.”
Moreno nodded.
“But it’s not our problem, of course,” said deBries. “We’re only obeying orders: Get over there and seek out all women who use a walking stick in that dump! Or all men with false teeth in Aarlach! All left-handed whores in Hamburg! Ask them what they were doing between three and four o’clock in the afternoon on the day before Christmas Eve 1973, and most important-write down every single word they say! It’s great fun, this sleuthing: This is exactly what I dreamed about when I made up my mind to become a detective.”