He squeezed tentatively. Suddenly felt hungry, as if he had been pressing a button. He had been forbidden to eat anything after six p.m., and it struck him that in fact he hadn’t eaten since twelve. At this very moment his intestine was doubtless locked in a vain struggle to suck the last drop of nutrition from the beer he had drunk at Adenaar’s. . He tried to conjure up the process in his mind’s eye, but the images that shim-mered into view were blurred and abstract, way beyond the limits of comprehension.
It must have been at some point in this flickering sequence of incomprehensible images that he lost consciousness. No doubt the dim film show emanating from his intestines lasted for a while longer, but soon things started to become clearer.
All at once the images sharpened. The stage was well lit and crystal clear. The operating theater peopled with mysterious figures in green, flitting around without a sound, their concentration hypnotic in its intensity. Only the faint, shrill clang of sharp instruments being whetted or dropped into 5 9
metal dishes occasionally disturbed the dense, conspiratorial silence.
He lay there, naked and exposed on the cold marble table, and it struck him that it was all over. This wasn’t an operation.
This was taking place in the familiar and rather chilly autopsy theater at the Forensic Institute where he’d watched Meusse and his colleagues at work many a time.
He approached the table and the group of enthusiastically cutting and carving figures, and it occurred to him that he couldn’t be the one lying there, that it must be some other poor, unfortunate and totally unknown soul. But there again, maybe not so unknown. . There was something familiar about that headless body. It didn’t seem to have any hands either, and no feet, and when he finally managed to force his way past Meusse and that pale, fat assistant whose name he could never remember, it dawned on him that it wasn’t a table they were working at, but a piece of very ordinary woodland, a ditch in fact; and what they were busy with was not an operation or an autopsy-they had just rolled up the body in a big, dirty piece of carpet and were hurrying to force it down into the overgrown ditch where it belonged. Where everything belonged. Now and forevermore.
And then he was the one rolled up inside the carpet, after all. He couldn’t make a sound, could hardly breathe, but he could hear their excited whispers even so. This is a good place to put him! Nobody will ever find him here. He’s a totally unnecessary person. Why should we worry about anybody like that?
And he yelled at them, to bear in mind their moral responsibilities. Yes, that is exactly what he yelled, but of course it didn’t do much good, the carpet was too thick and they were already leaving, and it was extremely difficult to make yourself heard when you didn’t have a head.
The woman shook his arm. He opened his eyes and was just going to yell once more that they should bear in mind their moral responsibilities when he realized that he had woken up.
She said something, and he had the impression that her eyes were full of sympathy. Or something like that, at least.
Am I dead? Van Veeteren wondered. She looked quite
angelic, in fact. It was not an impossibility.
But she was holding a telephone receiver. Everything
seemed to be bordering on the profane, and then the penny dropped: He hadn’t even been operated on yet. It was morning, and everything was still in store.
“Telephone,” she said again. “A call for the chief inspector.”
She handed him the receiver and walked away. He cleared his throat and tried to sit up.
“Hello?”
“DCI Van Veeteren?”
It was Munster.
“Speaking.”
“Please excuse me for troubling you at the hospital, but you did say that the operation wasn’t until eleven. . ”
“What time is it now, then?” He searched for a clock on the empty walls, but couldn’t see one.
“Twenty past ten.”
“Oh.”
“I thought I ought to tell you that we know who it is. .
You did seem to be a bit interested.”
“You mean the body in the carpet?”
For a fraction of a second he thought he was dreaming again.
“Yes. We’re all quite sure it must be Leopold Verhaven.”
“What?”
For a couple of seconds Van Veeteren’s mind was a blank.
A minute expanse of stainless steel from which everything bounced off and had no chance of penetrating.
“What the hell was that you said?”
“Yes, Leopold Verhaven. He’s the one. I take it that you remember him?”
Three seconds passed. The steel melted and allowed the information to penetrate.
“Do nothing!” said Van Veeteren. “I’m on my way.”
He started to climb out of bed, but at that very moment the doors opened and in marched an unexpectedly large squad of personnel dressed in green.
The receiver was left dangling.
“Hello?” said Munster. “Are you still there?”
The nurse picked it up.
“Mr. Van Veeteren has just left for the operating theater,”
she explained and replaced the receiver.
III
11
There were two good vantage points and two possible trains.
The first wasn’t due until 12:37, but even so he had taken up his position at about 11:00. It was important that he should get the right seat: at one of the window tables on the veranda. He had scouted it out a few days beforehand: The view over the square in front of the station was excellent, especially the area between the taxi rank and the newsstand. It was at the center of his field of vision, and all newly arrived passengers were bound to end up there sooner or later.
Unless they took the prohibited route over the railroad tracks, of course; but why would he do that? His house was in this direction; there was no reason for him to head northward; so if he intended to come straight home, he would pass by here. Sooner or later, as already stated. Most likely round about a quarter to one.
An hour and a half from now.
What he would do next was an open question; but the
probability was that he would take a cab for the remaining ten miles or so. That was of minor significance. The main thing was that he came.
Then everything would work out, no doubt. Somehow or
other.
He ordered lunch-cold cuts with salad; bread, butter and cheese. But he hardly touched the food during the two hours he sat there. Instead he smoked about fifteen cigarettes, occasionally turning the pages of the book he
