worthy of the name noticed without being aware of it. .
This is me, she thought. I’m made for this, and I’m better at it than any other woman in the world.
That was an exaggeration; she knew it was, but just now she needed all the self-confidence she could talk herself into.
She checked her watch.
Twenty minutes to ten.
She had less than two hours left to live.
He turned up at a quarter to eleven.
She stood up immediately, crossed over the street and bumped into him just as he was coming round the corner.
“Leo!” she said, and thought she’d made it sound as much of a nice surprise as she’d intended.
He stopped. Nodded in that slightly surly way of his. As if she’d interrupted him in the middle of some important calculation or fascinating line of thought. He gave her what might have been the beginnings of a smile. Perhaps there was hope after all.
She moved closer to him and placed her hand on his arm.
Continued smiling. They’d had sex-she counted the occasions in a flash-six times. He was the hot type; no interest at all in foreplay or romantic stuff. Easy to start, hard to drive, as her friend Nellie usually said.
“Where are you going?” she said.
Verhaven shrugged. Nowhere, it seemed. Or at least, nowhere important.
“Could we get together, maybe?”
“Now?”
“Yes. I have to meet a friend of mine shortly, but after that if you like.”
He shrugged again. Not a good sign, she realized that, but she had no choice,
“I’ve got a little problem.”
“Really?” said Verhaven.
She hesitated. Looked rather worried as she stroked his arm.
“What kind of a problem?”
“Money.”
He didn’t answer. Looked away and stared over her
shoulder.
“Can you help me, please?”
Nicely put. Just the right pitch between pleading and pride.
“How much?”
“Two thousand guilders.”
“Go to hell.”
She ran out of steam.
“Please, Leo. .”
“I have to go.”
She took hold of him with the other hand as well. Spoke close to his face now.
“Leo,” she said, “it’s so very, very important. I’ll repay every single. .”
“Let go!”
He tore himself free. She took a pace back. Bit her upper lip hard and managed to fill her eyes with tears in only one second.
“Leo. .”
“Good-bye.”
He thrust her to one side and walked past her. She spun around.
“Leo!”
He didn’t even stop. Kept on walking down Zwille and
turned into Kreugerlaan. Oh, shit!
Fucking shit!
The tears were almost genuine now. She stamped several times and gritted her teeth. Shit!
A car pulled up beside her. The driver leaned over and rolled down the window.
“Like to come with me?”
Without hesitation she opened the door and jumped in.
When she had dried her tears with the handkerchief he held out for her, she saw who it was.
She also looked at her watch.
Ten to ten.
Maybe it would turn out OK after all.
X
34
“Right, we’re dropping this case as of now!”
The chief of police removed a dry leaf from a fig plant.
Van Veeteren sighed and contemplated the blue-suited outline of his boss against the lush green background. The hell you are! he thought.
Although it didn’t exactly come as a shock.
“We have more important things to do.”
Another leaf was selected for feeling and analyzing. The chief inspector averted his eyes. He turned his attention instead to a half-chewed toothpick and waited for what came next, but nothing did. Not right away, at least. Hiller pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and continued fumbling with the plants. Van Veeteren sighed again; the chief of police’s weakness for botanical pursuits was a constant and frequently discussed topic of conversation in the lower regions of the Maardam police station. There were a number of theories. Some considered the phenomenon to be an obvious substitute for a withered love life-elegant Mrs. Hiller was said to have put up the shutters after her fifth child-while another body of opinion supported the theory that the green panorama was in fact camouflage to conceal the secret microphones that served to record every word uttered in the somber and solemn building that served as police headquarters.
Inspector Markovic in Missing Persons generally advocated the so-called lack-of-potty-training theory, but most people, including Van Veeteren, felt it sufficient to maintain that, damn it all, the chief of police would have been much better as a head gardener.
A head gardener in a suit? he thought, stuffing the toothpick into the gap between the seat and the armrest of the leather armchair he was sitting in. Why not? The more time Hiller devoted to his potted plants and the less time he spent attending to his police duties, the better.
Leave the monkey to do whatever it wants in the jungle, Reinhart always said. Life is easier that way.
But at this stage the monkey had decided to interfere. Van Veeteren scratched tentatively at his scar.
“Crap,” he said.
He had evidently been expected to say something, after all.
Hiller spun round.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Do I need to spell it out?” Van Veeteren asked, and blew his nose. His cold had been coming and going all day. Perhaps he was allergic to some of these weird plants; perhaps it was just returning to reality after his time in hospital that had got the better of him.
