The G File by Håkan Nesser

deep. I don’t think it’s usual to have diving towers either, is it?’
    ‘That’s down to the bloke who built the bloody thing,’ said Hennan.
    ‘What do you mean by that?’
    ‘The bloke who owns the house. His wife was a diver. He gave her this damned pool – and the diving tower – as a wedding present. My wife . . .’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘My wife also enjoyed diving. Do you know how far it is from the top of the tower down to the bottom of the pool?’
    Sachs shook his head, and felt a sudden shooting pain down his spine when he looked up at the dazzlingly white concrete construction.
    ‘Fourteen metres. Ten plus four. Fourteen metres, do you understand that? No wonder she bloody well killed herself.’
    Sachs closed his notebook and sat upright.
    He’s right, he thought. No wonder she bloody well killed herself.
    They could hear footsteps approaching from the darkness of the garden but the chief inspector had time for one more question before the team from Maardam appeared.
    ‘But why didn’t she see?’ he asked. ‘Why didn’t she see there was no water in there?’
    Hennan seemed to wonder whether he ought to answer or not.
    ‘It must have been dark,’ he said. ‘It was me who switched on the spotlights when I started looking for her. I think she was a bit drunk as well.’
    ‘What makes you think that?’
    ‘Because that idiot of a doctor says so. Anyway, enough is enough now, for Christ’s sake.’
    ‘All right,’ said Sachs. ‘Thank you for your cooperation.’
    He stood up in order to welcome the pathologist Meusse, whom he’d known since he was about ten years old without ever really being able to understand the man. But he gathered that he was by no means alone in that.
    ‘Good evening,’ he said.
    ‘Good morning,’ said Meusse. ‘Where’s the body?’
    ‘My wife is lying at the bottom of the swimming pool,’ said Hennan, who also stood up. ‘Is this going to be a bloody full-scale invasion? I’m off to bed now.’
    Meusse observed him with interest for a few seconds, over the top of his spectacles.
    ‘Do that,’ he said, stroking his hand over his bald head. ‘Sleep well.’

6
     
    When Chief Inspector Van Veeteren came out into the street with Bismarck, it had just turned half past six in the morning and the sun had not yet managed to climb over the top of the line of dirty brown blocks of flats on the other side of Wimmergraacht.
    Even so, it seemed like quite a decent morning. The temperature must have been round about twenty degrees, and bearing in mind that he lived in a city where near gale-force winds blew three mornings out of five and it rained every other day, he couldn’t really complain.
    Not about the weather, at least.
    What he
could
complain about was the time. His wife Renate had woken him up with a prod of the elbow, and claimed that Bismarck was whimpering and wanted to go out. Without a second thought he had got up, dressed, attached a lead to the collar of the large Newfoundland bitch, and set off. He was presumably not properly awake until he came to the Wimmerstraat–Boolsweg crossroads, where a clattering tramcar screeched round the curve and scratched a wound in his eardrums.
    He was now as wide awake as a newborn babe.
    Bismarck forged ahead, her nose sniffing the asphalt. The goal was obvious: Randers Park. Five minutes there, ten minutes examining the plants and relieving herself in the bushes, then five minutes back home. Van Veeteren had been on this outing before, and wondered if the faithful old dog really was all that keen on this compulsory morning walk.
    Perhaps she did it to keep the people she lived with happy. They needed to get out and have some exercise every morning, taking it in turns: it seemed a bit odd, but Bismarck did what was required of her in all weathers, rain or shine.
    It was a worrying thought: but she was that type of dog, and how the hell could one know for sure?
    At the beginning there had been no question of Van