The G File (24 page)

Then that split second disappeared into its shell like a mussel; and looking back, it was not possible to say if it had been imagination or not. Hennan slowly straightened his back and took a deep breath. Directed his gaze once more at Van Veeteren, and eyed him with an expression of mild contempt.

‘It seems to be nice weather out there.’

‘Could be worse.’

‘Thank you for the beer. Perhaps I can return the compliment next week. I know a good place in Linden.’

Huh, I hate that bastard, thought the Chief Inspector. I really do.

That night he dreamed he was making love to Christa Koogel.

They were married, had four children and lived in a big house by the sea. Behrensee, as far as he could make out, south of the pier. Just how this came to him in a dream was unclear, to say the least; but it was a fact even so. It was not a sudden, frenzied bout of intercourse, but calm and tender love-making with a woman who had been his life’s companion for many years; and when he woke up it was clear to him that he had been on a journey in search of one of those alternative paths through life. A possibility that had not become reality, a direction his life could have taken if only something else had not intervened instead.

If he had not made different choices. Or if he had made them.

He looked at the clock. It was only half past five. He noticed that he was covered in sweat: if this was a result of his illusory love-making, or if it was the cold sweat caused by the angst of what might be in store in the day to come, he didn’t know. The dream lingered on inside him like a stab of sorrow, and he knew that he would be unable to go back to sleep.

He got up carefully – so as not to wake up his actual life’s companion – and had a shower instead. Stood there for ages, hoping the water would wash away some of the slag inside his body as well: but it was doubtful if he succeeded in that. When he sat down at the breakfast table with the
Allgemejne
, it was twenty minutes to seven. The trial in Linden was not due to begin until ten o’clock, and he realized that he had a long day ahead of him.

The first of many.

In addition to places for those actually involved in the trial, the courtroom in Linden had room for about fifty observers, including authorized representatives of the media; and when the doors were closed before proceedings began, the number of those interested in attending but unable to do so because of the lack of space was about three times as great as the number who could be fitted in.

In view of the interest aroused by the case of the dead American woman, there had been some discussion about transferring the trial to Maardam, but Judge Hart had dismissed any such suggestion. This is not a football match, after all, he had declared, and the rule of law was not dependent on such irrelevant factors as public interest and media coverage. In no way.

The Chief Inspector had described Hart as an apathetic toad with an intellect and education equivalent to about half a dozen Nobel Prize-winners, and when Münster contemplated his slim figure up on the podium, he suspected that this was probably a fitting assessment. He looked as if he had been most reluctant to get out of bed that morning, and if he hadn’t slept in his ceremonial robes, they clearly hadn’t been ironed for the last six months. He began by clearing his throat very loudly and changing his glasses three times. Then he slammed his hammer down on the statute book, producing a cloud of dust, and instructed the prosecutor to open proceedings.

Prosecutor Silwerstein stood up and presented his case. It took just under forty-five minutes, and the gist was that he intended to show how the accused, Jaan G. Hennan, with malice aforethought and ice-cold execution, murdered – or arranged the murder of – his wife, Barbara Clarissa Hennan, née Delgado, on Thursday, 5 June, by pushing her – or arranging for her to be pushed – into the empty swimming pool in the grounds of the pair’s rented home, Villa Zefyr, at Kammerweg 4 in Linden. He intended to make it clear, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Hennan was guilty of this unscrupulous deed, despite the fact – and this was being stated openly and unhesitatingly at this early stage of proceedings – that it was not the intention of the prosecution to base its case on so-called technical proof, since such proof – strictly speaking – could not be found in a case of this kind. It was as simple as that.

Instead the prosecution intended to base its case on circumstantial evidence – but it was exceptionally telling circumstantial evidence whose implications were crystal clear, and whose combined weight and significance could hardly leave anybody in doubt – especially not any of the five esteemed members of the jury – about who had instigated, staged and carried out the said murder. Likewise – here too in more than merely convincing fashion – the flagrant motive for the crime would be revealed, and placed in razor-sharp relation to what had happened to a previous wife of the accused quite recently in the United States of America. For the second time in the course of four years, the wife of the accused had died in mystical circumstances (at this point a few semantic nit-pickers in the public gallery reacted with half-suppressed giggles), and for the second time Jaan G. Hennan was now hoping to collect a considerable – very considerable! – amount from the company that had insured her life. One point two million!

The prosecutor had no doubt that all those present in this courtroom, once all the facts had been revealed and presented, would be totally convinced that Jaan G. Hennan was not only guilty of one wife’s murder, but of two. It was the duty of all concerned to make sure that he was given a long and justified sentence.

For most of this introductory harangue, Münster kept a close watch on the five members of the jury – three women and two men (a proportion which perhaps, but presumably only peripherally, according to the Chief Inspector, might work to Hennan’s disadvantage, since women, thanks to tradition and their concern for their own sex, were less inclined to find wife-murderers not guilty than men were) – and tried to assess from their facial expressions and subtle reactions how they were thinking on the starting line, as it were.

It was of course impossible to obtain a clear indication on that basis. When Silwerstein had just finished his verbose introduction, one of the two men on the jury – a grey-haired gentleman aged about sixty-five who reminded Münster vaguely of the actor Jean Gabin – took out a colourful handkerchief and blew his nose with a muffled but audible trumpeting noise, and it seemed to Münster that if he had to interpret it, it was not an especially good omen for the outcome.

As for the main character himself, Jaan G. Hennan, he sat for almost all the prosecuting counsel’s speech with his head bowed and his hands demurely clasped on the table in front of him. He was wearing a discreet, medium-grey suit with a black band on its lapel. White shirt and black tie. It was not hard to understand that he was trying to look as if he were in mourning.

Nor was it difficult to see that he had succeeded rather well in this respect.

After the prosecutor, it was the defence counsel’s turn.

She was a woman, which perhaps restored Hennan’s position. If a woman was prepared to defend an alleged wife-killer – well, there was something in all normal women (the Chief Inspector had maintained with a worried sigh), a faint biological voice whispering that the accused couldn’t be a wife-killer in fact.

Fru Van Molde said nothing about whether or not the prosecutor was naked under his gown, but she did not mince her words. For rather more than half an hour she devoted herself to describing the so-called case for the prosecution as a badly constructed house of cards without so much as a single trump. She described her client, Jaan G. Hennan, as an upright and honest man who had suffered a terrible loss – yet again! – and instead of sitting here in the dock defending his honour, he should be set free immediately and in the interests of common decency allowed to get on with making the funeral arrangements. In the most tragic circumstances imaginable he had been robbed of his wife, and it was nothing short of a scandal that – without so much as an ounce of proof! – he had been taken to court, and in the grim light of all the facts there was only one verdict that could to some degree restore one’s faith in the judiciary. The case should be dismissed without further ado, and the accused set free immediately.

Münster couldn’t read any unambiguous reactions on the part of the jury to this demand either, and Judge Hart did not dismiss the case. Instead, he changed his glasses once again, yawned, and stated that it was time for lunch. Proceedings would resume at two o’clock.

During the afternoon session both Chief Inspectors Sachs and Van Veeteren spent half an hour in the witness stand. Sachs reported in detail about what he and Probationer Wagner had done during the night when Barbara Hennan had been found dead, and Van Veeteren gave a very different account, covering other details of the case. He explained the dubious input of the private detective, Verlangen; Hennan’s background; the mysterious death of Philomena McNaught, and the business of the insurance policy. Münster could see that the Chief Inspector was not exactly enjoying himself, neither with regard to the infantile leading questions from the prosecutor, nor to the defence counsel’s somewhat arrogant tone of voice as she attempted to portray the police input into the case as amateurish.

‘But for God’s sake, why didn’t you drop the investigation when you didn’t manage to find the slightest bit of technical proof?’ she asked at one point.

‘Because we CID officers consider it to be our duty to catch and lock up murderers,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Unlike you, fru Van Molde, who are keen to set them free.’

Then it was Meusse’s turn. If it were possible, he seemed to enjoy sitting in the dock even less than the Chief Inspector – but then again, Münster couldn’t recall ever having seen the introverted pathologist enjoying himself. Not in any circumstances. In any case, he described the unclear situation with crystal clarity. There was nothing to support the suggestion that Barbara Hennan had been pushed from the diving tower, and nothing to suggest that she had been rendered unconscious first: but on the other hand there was nothing to contradict either possibility. The injuries to her head, neck, nape and spine were extensive, Meusse asserted: but a little push in the back seldom resulted in any marks at all. Not in general, and not in this case either.

Neither the prosecutor nor the defence counsel had many questions to put to the pathologist, since they had both – so to say – been given carte blanche for their respective points of view, and Meusse was able to leave the witness stand after less than fifteen minutes. Despite the fact that it was only half past three, Judge Hart declared proceedings closed for the day. He wished everybody a pleasant evening, urged the members of the jury not to discuss the case with one another nor with anybody else, and expected to see all those involved in court by ten o’clock the following morning.

‘Perhaps one could have expected a little more of the prosecutor,’ said Münster in the car on the way back to Maardam.

‘Silwerstein is an ass,’ said Reinhart from the back seat.

‘That may well be,’ said the Chief Inspector. ‘But we can’t do anything about that. And in any case, what happened today isn’t what will decide the outcome.’

‘Let’s hope not,’ said Reinhart. ‘Are you saying that the outcome depends on Hennan? I thought he managed to look pretty broken-hearted today, the berk. As if he were attending a funeral . . . Or sitting in a dentist’s waiting room, or something of that sort.’

Van Veeteren sighed.

‘What the hell did you expect? If he was stupid as well, on top of everything else, he would have been in jail for a long time by now.’

Reinhart thought for a moment.

‘What had I expected?’ he said eventually. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you. I’d expected that by now we would have found that damned accomplice . . . The one who actually killed Barbara Hennan. We’ve been looking for him for a month now, and I don’t think I’ve ever been involved in anything that produced so few results. Or what do you have to say?’

Neither Van Veeteren nor Münster had any comment to make.

‘We have Kooperdijk and Verlangen as well,’ said Münster after a while.

‘That’s true,’ muttered the Chief Inspector. ‘Witnesses for the prosecution. Let’s hope that they don’t turn out to be henchmen for the defence . . .’

‘Hasn’t fru Van Molde called a single witness?’ wondered Münster.

‘No,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘She hasn’t. Let’s hope that Silwerstein is able to score a point on that fact, at least. That it was not possible to find a single character witness to speak in favour of Hennan. That says quite a lot, after all.’

‘It’s not compulsory to produce character witnesses,’ said Reinhart. ‘When the accused doesn’t have a character, it could be stupid to do so.’

‘That’s what I’m saying,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘For God’s sake, let’s go to Adenaar’s. You have time for a beer, I hope?’

Münster checked his watch.

‘Well, just a small one,’ he said. ‘At least the trial didn’t drag out all day. Every cloud, and all that.’

‘One must be grateful for small mercies,’ said Reinhart. ‘When the big ones are a cock-up. So, full steam ahead for half an hour at Adenaar’s. We need to talk a bit of crap instead of going on and on about this damned case.’

The building was on Westerkade, almost as far out as the Loorn Canal, and when Verlangen saw it he didn’t understand why the local authorities hadn’t insisted on demolishing it ages ago.

Nor did he understand how anybody could consider living in it. The dirty and decrepit brick building had four floors, but the street frontage was no more than twelve to fifteen metres long; on one side of it was a scrapyard, and on the other some sort of warehouse made of rusty corrugated iron. Nevertheless, when he entered through the disintegrating wooden front door he couldn’t help but feel a little twinge of satisfaction: despite everything there were evidently folk who lived in worse conditions than he did himself.