M:-So I understand.
DEB:-So, your name is Alwin Malgre, and you live at Weijskerstraat 26B?
M:-That's correct.
DEB:-Would you mind speaking a bit louder, please?
M:-Why?
DEB:-I'm recording our conversation on this tape recorder.
M:-Oh…
DEB:-Anyway. I take it you are aware that a murder was committed in the apartment block where you live at some time between midnight and two in the morning last Wednesday night?
M:-Maasleitner, yes. It's terrible.
DEB:-Your apartment is next door to his, I understand. Can you please tell me what you were doing the night before last?
M:-Er, let me see… Yes, I was at home, reading…
DEB:-Do you live alone in the apartment?
M:-Yes, of course.
DEB:-And you didn't have any visitors?
M:-No.
DEB:-Please go on.
M:-I was at home reading all evening. Cramming, perhaps I should say. I had to attend that seminar because Van Donck didn't have time…
DEB:-Who's Van Donck?
M:-My boss, of course.
DEB:-What is your work, and what exactly was this conference? Is that where you were yesterday?
M:-Yes, in Aarlach. I work at the Stamp Center. Van Donck is my boss… Well, there's just the two of us in the firm. You could say that I'm his assistant.
DEB:-You sell postage stamps, is that right?
M:-And buy. Are you interested in philately, Mr… Mr…?
DEB:-DeBries. No. What was this conference all about?
M:-More of a seminar, really. Seminar and auction. About the problems resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union. This time it was mainly the stamps issued by the Baltic states that we were discussing. I don't know if you realize the chaos that has been caused in philately by the formation of all these new states… It's a gold mine for us as well, of course, depending on how speculative you want to be.
DEB:-Naturally. Anyway, we can go into that some other time. Back to Wednesday evening, if you wouldn't mind.
M:-Well, I don't know what to say. I came home at half past six or thereabouts. Had my evening meal and started reading. Had a cup of tea at about half past nine, I should think it was… Watched the nine o'clock news on the telly as well, of course. Well, and then I suppose I sat up until about half past eleven, roughly.
DEB:-So you were asleep from half past eleven, is that right?
M:-No, I carried on reading until about a quarter to one. In bed, that is. Van Donck had acquired two new books that same afternoon, and obviously, I didn't want to go to Aarlach underprepared. I'd have a bit of time on the train as well, naturally, but…
DEB:-Did you notice anything?
M:-Excuse me?
DEB:-Did you notice anything unusual during the evening?
M:-No.
DEB:-You didn't hear anything around midnight?
M:-No… No, I was in bed by then. The bedroom faces the courtyard.
DEB:-So you didn't notice when Mr. Maasleitner came home?
M:-No.
DEB:-Nothing else around that time either?
M:-No.
DEB:-Do you usually hear noises from inside Maasleitner's apartment?
M:-No, the building is extremely well insulated.
DEB:-We've gathered that. Were you well acquainted with your neighbor?
M:-Maasleitner, you mean?
DEB:-Yes.
M:-No, not at all. We said hello if we bumped into each other on the stairs, but that's all.
DEB:-I understand. Is there anything else you saw or heard that you think might be connected with the murder?
M:-No.
DEB:-Nothing you noticed that you think we ought to know about?
M:-No-What are you referring to?
DEB:-Anything at all. Something unusual that has happened recently for instance?
M:-No… no, I can't think of anything.
DEB:-You don't know if Maasleitner had any visitors these last few days?
M:-No, I've no idea. You'd better ask the other neighbors. I'm not all that observant…
DEB:-We can't very well expect you to be. Anyway, many thanks, Mr. Malgre. If anything occurs to you, please get in touch with us without delay.
M:-Of course. Thank you very much. This was most interesting.
Extremely productive, deBries thought after Malgre had left the room. He lit a cigarette, stood by the window, and gazed out over the town.
Three hundred thousand people, he thought. There sometimes seemed to be pretty high walls between all of them. While one of them gets shot and killed, his neighbor is in bed ten meters away, reading up on Estonian postage stamps.
But no doubt that's what was meant by the concept of privacy.
It took Van Veeteren about a minute to discover that having lunch while reconstructing what had happened was not a good idea. When he entered Freddy's bar and restaurant through the low door, Enso Faringer was already sitting at their reserved table, and his nervousness was obvious from a distance.
Van Veeteren sat down and produced a pack of cigarettes: Faringer took one and dropped it on the floor.
“So,” the chief inspector began, “we might as well have a bite to eat, seeing as we're sitting here.”
“Sounds good.”
“So this is where you spent Wednesday evening, is it?”
Faringer nodded and adjusted his spectacles, which evidently had a tendency to slide down his shiny nose.
“I understand you are a German teacher.”
“Yes,” said Faringer. “Somebody has to be.”
Van Veeteren was not sure if that was meant as a joke or not.
“You presumably knew Maasleitner well?”
“Er… not really, no.”
“But you used to meet, I gather?”
“Only sporadically. We'd go out for a beer now and then.”
“Such as last Wednesday?”
“Yes, like last Wednesday.”
Van Veeteren said nothing for a while in order to give Faringer an opportunity of saying something off his own bat; but it was a waste of time. His eyes were moving ceaselessly behind his thick glasses, he was wriggling and squirming in his chair and fiddling with the knot of his tie.
“Why are you so nervous?”
“Nervous?”
“Yes. I have the impression you're frightened of something.”
Faringer emitted a very short laugh.
“No, I'm always like this.”
Van Veeteren sighed. The waiter came with the menu and they spent a few minutes perusing it before deciding on today's special.
“What did you talk about on Wednesday?”
“I can't remember.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don't recall. We had a bit too much to drink, and I often get these black holes in my memory.”
“But you must remember something, surely?”
“Yes, I know that Maasleitner asked me about the situation at school. He was in a bit of a mess. He asked me to help him.”
“How?”
Faringer scratched at his neck, where he had some kind of a rash.
“Oh, I don't know. Keep my eyes open, I assume.”
“He didn't ask you to take an initiative?”
“An initiative? No. How would I be able to take an initiative?”
No, Van Veeteren thought. That would be out of the question, of course. Enso Faringer wasn't the type to take initiatives.
The lunch lasted for forty-five minutes, despite the fact that Van Veeteren canceled dessert and coffee; and by the time he sat down in the driver's seat of his car, he was convinced of one thing. Faringer had been telling the truth. The little German teacher had no recollection of the measures he and Maasleitner had drawn up to save the world during the evening of the murder. Van Veeteren had also talked to the staff at Freddy's, and nobody found it the least bit strange that the “little Kraut” had lost his memory. On the contrary.
It had simply been one of those evenings.
So that was that, Van Veeteren thought. Deep down he was also rather grateful-having to sit there and listen to Enso Faringer's account of a whole evening of drunken rambling would hardly have constituted an unmissable experience.
When he was about halfway back to the police station, he found himself with something else to think about. It had started raining again, and it was clear that if he didn't do something about replacing that damned windshield wiper as soon as possible, something nasty was likely to happen.