The Return

H: Tell us what you did the rest of the day.

V: Nothing much.

H: What, exactly?

V: I sat around at home. Watched television. Went to bed.

H: And you still didn’t wonder where your fiancee was?

V: No.

H: Why didn’t you wonder?

V: They come and go.

H: What do you mean?

V: Women. They come and go.

H: Tell us what you did on Sunday.

V: I was at home. I didn’t do anything much. Saw to the hens.

H: And where did you think Beatrice was?

V: I don’t know.

H: It wasn’t that you knew where she was?

V: No.

H: It wasn’t that you knew she was lying dead in the forest, murdered? Nearly a mile into the forest?

V: No.

H: So you didn’t kill her, which would explain why you didn’t wonder where she was?

V: No, that’s not how it was. It wasn’t me who killed her.

H: But you didn’t miss her on Sunday?

V: No.

H: You didn’t check to see if she’d gone to her mother’s, for instance?

V: No.

H: Do you have a telephone, Mr. Verhaven?

V: No.

H: So you weren’t the least bit worried about Beatrice?

V: No.

H: And what about the following week? Didn’t you miss her then, either?

V: No.

H: You never wondered where she might have gone to?

V: No.

H: Did you think it was a relief, not to have her around?

[No reply from Verhaven]

H: I repeat: Did you think it was a relief not to have her around?

V: At first, perhaps.

H: Did your fiancee have a job at that time?

V: Not just then.

H: Where did she work when she was employed?

V: At Kaunitz’s. The garden center in Linzhuisen. But only occasionally.

H: When did you tell the police that your fiancee,

Beatrice Holden, was missing?

V: On Tuesday, the sixteenth.

H: Where?

V: In Maardam, of course.

H: And what made you report her missing on that

particular day? If you weren’t worried?

V: It just occurred to me. As I was driving past the police station.

H: So you still didn’t think something might have

happened to her?

V: No. Why should I?

H: Don’t you think it would be natural to think that?

V: No. She usually got by.

H: But she didn’t on this occasion.

V: No, not on this occasion.

H: How did you hear that she’d been found dead?

V: The police came and told me.

H: How did you react to that?

V: I was sorry.

H: Sorry? Sergeant Weiss maintains that you didn’t react at all. That you simply thanked him and asked him to

go away.

V: Why should I cry on his shoulder? I can get by.

H: Don’t you think you’ve been acting rather strangely since Beatrice Holden disappeared?

V: No, I don’t think so.

H: Do you understand that other people might think so?

V: I don’t know what other people think. They can think whatever they like as far as I’m concerned.

H: Really? And you are absolutely certain that it wasn’t you who killed your fiancee?

V: It wasn’t me.

H: Did you often go to the part of the forest where her body was found?

V: No.

H: Have you ever been there?

V: I might have been.

H: But not that weekend when she disappeared?

V: No.

H: What do you think about her death, Mr. Verhaven?

V: Nothing.

H: You must have some idea about how she died?

V: Some man or other, of course. Some sick type who can’t find himself a woman.

H: You don’t regard yourself as somebody like that?

V: I have no difficulty in finding myself women.

H: Thank you. No further questions at present.

Van Veeteren stuffed the bundle of papers into the narrow space under the top of his bedside table. It was very nearly one o’clock. I’d better get some sleep, he thought. Verhaven?

If only he’d been present at the trials! At the very least he could have spent an hour or two in court in connection with the Marlene case, when he’d played a minor role in the investigation. It might have been enough, actually seeing him in the flesh.

A few minutes watching him in the dock and he’d have known. Known if the nagging worry at the back of his mind was something to follow up. If there was any justification for it at all, or if Verhaven really was the primitive man of violence he’d been portrayed as being.

Guilty or not guilty, then?

It was impossible to say. Impossible then, impossible now.

But no matter what, there was no getting away from one fact: Somebody had been lying in wait for him when he was released from prison.

Somebody had killed him and butchered his body. Somebody had tried to ensure that they wouldn’t be able to identify him. That must surely have been the intention?

And finally: Somebody must have had a reason. What?

That was another question that still remained. Untouched and unanswered.

He switched off the light. Closed his eyes, and before he knew it, he had started dreaming about Jess and the