“Well, I saw him walking up the hill, that’s all there was to it. I didn’t recognize him at first, but then I saw. . ”
“You’re quite certain?”
“Who else could it have been?”
“I suppose there can’t be many people using this track?”
said Rooth, taking another cookie.
“Hardly a soul,” said Mr. Wilkerson. “Only the Czermaks opposite, but there’s hardly ever anybody up in the forest.”
“Are there any other houses?” Munster wondered.
“No,” said Wilkerson. “The track peters out fifty yards or so past Verhaven’s. I suppose we might get the occasional hunting party shooting hares or pheasants, but that’s not very often.”
“Did you see him as well, Mr. Wilkerson?”
Mrs. Wilkerson nodded.
“I shouted to him, of course. Yes, we both saw him all right. The twenty-fourth of August it was. Three o’clock, maybe just after. He had a suitcase and a plastic carrier bag, that’s all. He looked just like he always did. I must say I thought he’d have changed more than he had.”
“Really?” said Rooth. “Then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you must have seen him several times?”
“No,” said Wilkerson emphatically. “We didn’t.”
Rooth took another cookie and chewed thoughtfully.
“What you are saying,” said Munster, “is that you saw Leopold Verhaven walking past here on August twenty-fourth last year-the same day that he was released from prison-but that you haven’t seen him since?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you think that’s odd?”
Mrs. Wilkerson pursed her lips.
“There’s a lot about Leopold Verhaven that’s odd,” she said. “Don’t you agree? What’s happened?”
“We don’t know yet,” said Rooth. “Was there anybody in the village who mixed with him at all?”
“No,” said Wilkerson. “Nobody.”
“You must have gathered that,” said his wife.
Yes, I’ve started to, thought Munster. He was beginning to feel cooped up in this over-elaborately furnished and deco-rated little kitchen, and was coming around to the view that it would probably be best to save other questions for a later occasion. Until they had a bit of flesh on the skeleton, as it were. At the very least until they were certain that Leopold Verhaven really was their man.
Their dead body. It would be damned annoying if he suddenly crawled out from under a stone and disproved his own demise, as it were.
Although Munster was becoming more and more con-
vinced for every hour that passed. It couldn’t very well be anybody else. There are signs and there are signs, as Van Veeteren always said.
Rooth seemed to have read his thoughts. And in any case, the tray of cookies was empty.
“We might have to come back to you,” he said. “Many
thanks for the coffee.”
“It’s a pleasure,” said Mrs. Wilkerson.
As they were leaving, Munster asked a question out of nowhere.
“We spoke to the storekeeper,” he said. “He seemed to be. . uncomfortable, to say the least. Have you any idea why?”
“Of course,” said Mrs. Wilkerson curtly. “Beatrice was his cousin, after all.”
“Beatrice,” said Rooth as they were walking back to the house.
“She was the first one. Nineteen sixty-two, was it?”
“Yes,” said Munster. “Beatrice in 1962 and Marlene in 1981.
Nearly twenty years between them. It’s a very peculiar story, this one is-have you realized that?”
“I know,” said Rooth. “I had the impression that it was all cut and dried, but I have to say that I’m not so sure about that now.”
“What do you mean by that, Inspector?” asked Munster.
“Nothing,” said Rooth. “Let’s see what the technical guys have come up with. Kluisters and Berben have been hard at work, by the looks of things.”
13
“Welcome to the gang,” said Rooth.
DeBries flopped down onto the chair and lit a cigarette.
The smoke immediately started to irritate Rooth’s eyes, but he decided to put a brave face on it.
“I would be grateful if my good friend the inspector would be so kind as to put me in the picture,” said deBries. “Slowly and clearly, if you don’t mind. I was sitting wide awake in a car all night, keeping an eye on a house.”
“Did anything come of it?” Rooth wondered.
“I should say so,” said deBries. “The house is still there.
How long have you been growing that thing, by the way?”
“What thing?”
“That thing you have on your face. . It reminds me of something, but I can’t put my finger on it. Oh yes, that’s it! Pat Boone!”
“What the hell are you on about?”
“My guinea pig, of course. That I had when I was a boy. He caught some virus or other and his fur fell out. He looked a bit like that just before he died.”
Rooth sighed.
“Very funny,” he said. “How old are you?”
“Forty, feel like eighty. Why?”
Rooth scratched his armpits thoughtfully.
“I’m just wondering if you remember the Beatrice
murder. . Or if you were too little and gormless even then.”
DeBries shook his head.
“Sorry,” he said. “Maybe we should get started. No, I don’t remember the Beatrice murder.”
“I remember it only too darned well,” said Rooth. “I was ten or eleven. Nineteen sixty-two it was. Read about it in the papers every single day for months while it was going on.
Well, a month at least. We used to talk about it at school, in the lessons and during the breaks. Oh yes, I’ll be damned if it isn’t one of the clearest memories I have of my childhood.”
“I was only eight,” said deBries. “There’s a big difference between eight and ten. . I didn’t live here then either. But I read about it afterward, of course.”
“Mm,” muttered Rooth, blowing back a cloud of smoke.
“There was something about the whole mood. I remember my father going on about that Leopold Verhaven at our kitchen table, when we were having dinner. It wasn’t exactly usual for him to talk about such things, so we knew that it must be something very special. Everybody was interested in that murder. Every man jack. Believe you me!”
“I’ve gathered,” said deBries. “A bit of a witch hunt, wasn’t it?”
“Not just a bit,” said Rooth.
DeBries got up and stubbed out his cigarette in the wash-basin.
