The G File by Håkan Nesser Page B

‘Anything else?’
    ‘Yes, I’m afraid so,’ said Münster. ‘Hiller will no doubt be on to you. Something’s happened in Linden, if I understood it rightly.’
    ‘Linden?’
    ‘Yes. If we don’t have anything more important on – and we might not have now that—’
    ‘We’ll have to see,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘You’ll be in your office if I need you, I take it?’
    ‘Buried under a drift of papers,’ said Münster with a sigh, and continued down the corridor.
    Van Veeteren entered his office, and noted that it smelled rather like a working men’s lodging house. Not that he had ever lived in such an establishment, but he had been inside quite a few in the course of his duties.
    He opened the window wide and lit a cigarette. Inhaled deeply. Another morning and I’m still alive, he thought, and it struck him that what he would like to do more than anything else was to go and lie down for a while.
    Was there anything in the rules and regulations that said you were not allowed to have a bed in your office?
    ‘Yes, well, it’s that business in Linden,’ said Hiller, pouring some water into a pot of yellow gerbera. ‘I suppose we’ll have to drive out there and take a look.’
    ‘What’s it all about?’ asked Van Veeteren, contemplating the chief of police’s plants. There must have been about thirty: in front of the big picture window, on the desk, on a little table in the corner and on the bookshelves. It’s beginning to look like an obsession, he thought, and wondered what that was a sign of. Growing roses was a substitute for passion – he had read that somewhere; but Hiller’s display of plants in his office on the fourth floor of the police station was much more difficult to pin down. Van Veeteren’s botanical knowledge was limited, but even so he thought he could identify aspidistra and hortensia and yucca palm.
    And gerbera.
    The chief of police put down his watering can.
    ‘A dead woman,’ he said. ‘At the bottom of a swimming pool.’
    ‘Drowned?’
    ‘No. Certainly not drowned.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘There was no water in the pool. It’s rather difficult to drown in those circumstances. Not to say impossible.’
    A slight twitch of the mouth suggested that Hiller was indulging his sense of humour. Van Veeteren sat down on the visitor chair.
    ‘Murder? Manslaughter?’
    ‘Probably not. She probably fell in by sheer mischance. Or dived in by mistake. But it seems to be not straightforward, and Sachs has asked for assistance. He’s not quite himself after that little haemorrhage he had – no doubt you remember that? He seems to be aware of that himself. But he only has one more year to go before he retires.’
    Van Veeteren sighed. He had met – and worked with – Chief Inspector Sachs on three or four occasions. He had no special views about him – neither positive nor negative – but he knew that Sachs had suffered a minor cerebral haemorrhage a few months ago, and that it might have affected his judgement to some extent. At least, that is what had been alleged: but if it really was the case, or if it had more to do with Sachs’s lack of confidence after being a millimetre-thin blood-vessel wall away from death – well, that was difficult to say.
    ‘When did it happen?’ asked Van Veeteren.
    ‘Last night,’ said the chief of police, running his fingers over the immaculate knot in his tie. ‘You could delegate it to somebody, of course; but if you’re not too snowed under I think you ought to drive out there yourself. Bearing in mind Sachs’s situation. But there’s nothing to suggest anything irregular, remember that. It shouldn’t need more than a few hours and a bit of common sense.’
    ‘I’ll go myself,’ said Van Veeteren, standing up. ‘A car drive might do me good.’
    ‘Harrumph!’ said Hiller.
    ‘Jaan G. Hennan!’ exclaimed Van Veeteren as Münster started manoeuvring them out of the underground labyrinth that was the police station garage. ‘I