The Strangler's Honeymoon Read Online Free PDF Page B

from Sechshafen. However, I must say that I had hoped to make that journey in the best possible condition – namely with all my teeth present and correct.’
    ‘Your teeth?’
    ‘My teeth, yes. Incidentally, it is true that my name is Van Veeteren: but when it comes to my occupation, allow me to inform you that I ceased to be a member of the police force three years ago.’
    ‘Yes, of course,’ said the youth apologetically. ‘But they say you get dragged back in from time to time.’
    Get dragged back in? Van Veeteren thought, losing his concentration for a moment. Do they say I get dragged back in? What the hell . . . ?
    He thought quickly about the four years that had passed since he handed in his resignation to Hiller – but the chief of police changed the request on his own initiative to a sort of permanent leave, an arrangement for which there was no precedent in the rulebook. Was the situation really as the callow youth had described it? That he got dragged back in now and then? That he had difficulty in staying away?
    Three or four times, he decided. Maybe five or six, it depended on how you counted.
    But no more often than that. Once or twice a year. Not much to speak about, in fact, and he had never been the one to take the initiative. Apart from just once, perhaps. It had usually been Münster or Reinhart who had proposed something over a beer at Adenaar’s or Kraus’s place. Asked a tricky little question or requested some advice, as they and their colleagues were getting nowhere in a particular case.
    Asked for help, in fact: yes, that’s the way it was. Sometimes he had declined to be of assistance, sometimes he had been interested. But dragged back in ? No, that was going too far. Definitely an exaggeration: he hadn’t been involved in any police work in the real meaning of the term since he had become an antiquarian book dealer. In that respect his conscience was as clear and pure white as both innocence and arsenic.
    He glared at the shop assistant, who was shuffling his feet and seemed to be having difficulty in remaining silent. Van Veeteren himself had never found it difficult to remain silent. On the contrary, he and silence were old mates, and sometimes he found it advantageous to use silence as a weapon.
    ‘Rubbish,’ he said in the end. ‘I work with old books at Krantze’s antiquarian bookshop. Full stop. But the point has nothing to do with my personal circumstances, but with this olive stone.’
    ‘I see,’ said the shop assistant.
    ‘And this filling.’
    ‘And so?’
    ‘You acknowledge that you know me?’
    ‘Er, yes . . . Of course.’
    ‘Do you also acknowledge that you sold me a sandwich this morning?’
    The shop assistant took a deep breath, as if to build up some strength.
    ‘As I have done every morning for the past year or so, yes.’
    ‘Not every morning,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘Not by any means. Let’s say three or four times a week. And nowhere near a year either, as I used to shop at Semmelmann’s until January when they closed down. I very much doubt if I would ever have had a problem like this in that shop, incidentally.’
    The young man nodded submissively and hesitated.
    ‘But what the hell . . . What is the point you are making?’ he managed to force himself to ask as the blush began to make its way up from under his shirt collar.
    ‘The content of the sandwich, of course,’ said Van Veeteren.
    ‘The content?’
    ‘Precisely. According to what you said and in accordance with what I expected, you sold me this morning a lunchtime sandwich with a filling of mozzarella cheese – made from buffalo milk, of course – cucumber, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh basil, onion, radicchio and stoneless Greek olives.’
    The blush on the assistant’s face blossomed forth like a sunrise.
    ‘I repeat: stoneless olives!’
    With a restrained gesture Van Veeteren pointed out to the youth the small objects on the counter. The young man cleared his throat and clasped