Woman with Birthmark

by Håkan Nesser

“If we don't do anything about it, it'll be Monday for the rest of our lives,” said Reinhart.

  “Okay,” said the woman. “I'll be there.”

  Winnifred Lynch was a quarter Aboriginal, born in Perth, Australia, but raised in England. After a degree in English language and literature in Cambridge and a failed and childless marriage, she'd landed a post as guest lecturer at Maardam University. When she met Reinhart at the Vox jazz club in the middle of November, she'd just celebrated her thirty-ninth birthday. Reinhart was forty-nine. He went home with her, and they made love (with the occasional pause) for the next four days and nights—but to the surprise of both of them, given their previous experiences, it didn't end there. They carried on meeting. All over the place: at concerts, restaurants, cinemas, and, above all, of course, in bed. As soon as the beginning of December it was clear to Reinhart that there was something special about this slightly brown-skinned, intelligent woman, and when she went back to England for the Christmas holidays he felt withdrawal symptoms, the like of which he hadn't experienced for nearly thirty years. A sudden reminder of what it was like to miss somebody. Of the fact that somebody actually meant something to him.

  The feeling scared him stiff, no doubt about that; it was a warning, but when she came back after three weeks he couldn't help but go to meet her at the airport. Stood waiting with a bunch of roses and a warm embrace, and of course it started all over again.

  This Monday was the fifth—or was it the sixth?—occasion since then, and when he thought about it he realized that it could hardly have been more than ten days since she'd returned from vacation.

  So you could bet your life that he had something special going.

  “Why did you become a policeman?” she asked as they lay back in bed afterward. “You promised you'd tell me one day.”

  “It's a trauma,” he said after a moment's thought.

  “I'm human, you know,” she said.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  She didn't answer, but after a while he imagined that he understood.

  “All right,” he said. “It was a woman. Or a girl. Twenty years old.”

  “What happened?”

  He hesitated, and inhaled deeply twice on his cigarette before answering.

  “I was twenty-one. Reading philosophy and anthropology at the university, as you know. We'd been together for two years. We were going to get married. She was reading languages. One night she was going home after a lecture and was stabbed by a lunatic in Wollerim's Park. She died in the hospital before I got there. It took the police six months to find her killer. I was one of them by that time.”

  If she has the good sense to say nothing, I want to spend the rest of my life with her, he thought out of the blue.

  Winnifred Lynch put her hand on his chest. Stroked him gently for a few seconds, then got up and went to the bathroom.

  That does it, then, Reinhart acknowledged in surprise.

  Later on, when they'd made love again and then recovered, he couldn't resist asking her a question.

  “What do you have to say about a murderer who fired two shots into the groin of a victim who's already lying dead?”

  She thought for a moment.

  “The victim's a man, I take it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I think the murderer is a woman.”

  Well, I'll be damned, Reinhart thought.

  9

  The weekend spent by a stormy sea had had an invigorating effect on Police Chief Hiller, and when he returned to work on Monday morning he promptly ordered full steam ahead on the Malik case.

  What that meant in practice was no fewer than six officers of the Criminal Investigation Department, with Van Veeteren in charge, plus whatever foot soldiers were around, all of them expected to work full-time on finding the murderer. Senior officers in addition to Van Veeteren were Reinhart, Münster, Rooth, Heinemann, and Moreno. Jung had succumbed to influenza after his succession of sleepless nights and was expected to be sidelined for several more days yet. DeBries was on vacation.

  Van Veeteren had nothing in principle against having so many people working on the case. The only problem was that there wasn't very much for them to do that made sense. Trying to trace the murder weapon via narks and contacts in the so-called underworld was a hopeless, Sisyphean task, as he knew. In order to increase the chances of success to twenty-five percent, it would mean assigning a hundred police officers to that job for a hundred days—plus generous overtime money. That kind of staffing was resorted to only when a prime minister had been murdered. It was widely believed by the senior officers that Ryszard Malik had not been prime minister.

  That left the wife. Van Veeteren charged Moreno and Heinemann with keeping an eye on Ilse Malik's gradual return to full consciousness and emergence from the shadows. It was decided that they might as well have somebody at the hospital around the clock, seeing as they had enough officers available for once. You could never tell, and if there was anybody who might be able to come up with something relevant to this business, she was the one.

  The only other thing to do was to cast bread upon the waters. That was always a possibility. Call on anybody who had any kind of link with Malik—neighbors, business acquaintances, old and new friends—and ask them questions, in accordance with the proven method used with pigs searching for truffles; i.e., if you continue rooting around in the ground for long enough, sooner or later you'll come across something edible.

  Van Veeteren gave this less than stimulating task to Rooth and Reinhart to begin with (together with at least three otherwise unoccupied probationers of somewhat variable ability). Van Veeteren was naturally well aware that there was little point in telling Reinhart what to do, but as Hiller was revelling in his newly awakened zeal and wanted a sheet of paper on his brightly polished desk no later than Tuesday afternoon, that is of course what he would get.

  Despite a rather troublesome cold, Van Veeteren himself went to play badminton with Münster. This was not mentioned on the list of duties on the document placed before the chief of police.

  · · ·

  By the time Hiller's full steam ahead was throttled back on Friday and the team was reduced, due to an armed robbery resulting in a fatality in the suburb of Borowice, nothing much had been discovered. Under the supervision of Rooth and Reinhart—and later Münster as well—some seventy interviews had taken place, and the only outcome was that the image of Malik as a somewhat wooden but also reliable person used to taking responsibility had been fully established. Eighty kilos of decency with two left brains, as Reinhart preferred to express it.

  And precisely in line with Dr. Hübner's forecast, Ilse Malik had begun to float up toward the surface of the real world out at the New Rumford, even if it was a somewhat precarious journey. In any case, on Wednesday morning she had finally accepted as fact the murder of her husband. Her memories of that Friday evening consequently became a little more consistent in outline, and she was also able to tell them relatively coherently what she had been doing during the day of the murder. It is true that she occasionally relapsed into attacks of hysterical sobbing, but what more could one expect? Her son, Jacob, was present by her side more or less all the time, and if what Moreno had suggested was true—that he had cut himself loose from his mother's apron strings somewhat precipitately—he now seemed to be making up for his youthful rebellion. Of course, he had little choice but to make the most of the hand fate had dealt him.

  On Thursday morning something new crept into Ilse Malik's memory. To be sure, the son maintained immediately—in conversation with Heinemann and Moreno, who had also taken up residence at the bedside, with at least one of them permanently present—that it was a typical example of his mother's paranoia. He had heard about similar things before and recommended strongly that the officers shouldn't pay too much attention to it.

  However, what Ilse Malik claimed was that somebody had clearly had designs on her husband's life in the week before that fatal Friday. To be
gin with, they had received strange telephone calls, on two different occasions: on Tuesday and Thursday, if she remembered rightly. Someone had phoned without saying a word—she had only heard music through the receiver, despite the strong words she had used, especially the second time. Ilse Malik had no idea what the music was and what it was supposed to mean, but she was pretty sure that it had been the same tune both times.

  Whether or not her husband had received similar calls she had no idea. He certainly hadn't said anything about it.

  The other evidence of a plot to take Ryszard Malik's life was that a white Mercedes had attempted to kill him by crashing into his Renault as he was on his way home from work. For want of anything else to follow up, this information was also checked; but in view of the relatively slight damage done to Malik's car, both Heinemann and Moreno decided that the suspicions had no foundation in fact. The owner of the Mercedes in question was a sixty-two-year-old professor of limnology from Geneva, and when they contacted the Swiss police they found no reason to suspect that he might have had murderous intentions when he skidded into Malik's rear end.

  As for the rest of Mrs. Malik's revelations, they were mainly a distinctly humdrum description of a humdrum life and marriage, and in view of the changed circumstances with regard to staffing, Van Veeteren decided on Friday to cancel the hospital watch. By this time both Heinemann and Moreno were so bored by the job they had been given that they both volunteered to join the bank-robbery team, which was being led by Reinhart, who was also released from the Malik case—for the time being, at least. Jung and Rooth were also transferred to the newly established team, despite strong objections, especially from the latter, to the prospect of having to work over the weekend.

  Which left Van Veeteren and Münster.

  Also left was the necessity of attempting to achieve something vaguely reminiscent of a result.

  “Have you got any ideas?” ventured Münster as they sat over an early Friday evening beer at Adenaar's.

  “None at all,” muttered Van Veeteren, glaring at the rain pattering against the windowpane. “I don't normally have any ideas in this accursed month of the year. We'll have to wait and see.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” said Münster. “Funny, though. Reinhart thinks the killer is a woman.”

  “It's very possible,” sighed the chief inspector. “It's always hard to find a woman. Personally, I've been trying to find one all my life.”

  Coming from Van Veeteren and on an occasion such as this, that was almost to be regarded as a heroic attempt at humor. Münster was obliged to cough away a smile.

  “At least we can have the weekend off,” he said. “What a relief that we didn't have to go after the bank robber.”

  “Maybe. It's a relief for him, too, not to be pestered by us.”

  “I expect they'll get him all the same,” said Münster, draining his glass. “There were witnesses, after all. Anyway, I'd better be heading for home. Synn will have left for work by now, and the babysitter gets paid by the hour.”

  “Oh dear,” said Van Veeteren. “There's always a cloud on the horizon.”

  On Monday it became clear that Münster's prediction had been correct. The bank robber—an unemployed former traffic warden—had been arrested by Rooth and Heinemann early on Sunday morning, following a tip from a woman who had been extremely well dined in one of the best restaurants in town on Saturday evening. The confession came after less than an hour, thanks to some unusually effective interrogation by Reinhart, who was evidently keen to get home as quickly as possible as something important was awaiting him there.

  There had been no developments in the Malik case, apart from the fact that Jacob Malik had returned to his studies in Munich. His mother had been on a short visit to her sister's, where she would also be staying until the funeral, which had been fixed for February 3. Some twenty tips had been received from the general public, but none of them was considered to be of any significance for the investigation. When the general run-through and reports took place in the chief of police's leafy office, it was decided to reduce the level of activity to routine, with Van Veeteren in charge. On Saturday there had been a robbery at a jeweler's in the city center—this time, luckily, nobody had been injured; a racist gang had run amok through the immigrant district beyond Zwille and caused a certain amount of damage; and in the early hours of Monday morning an unhappy farmer out at Korrim had shot dead his wife and twelve cows. Obviously, all these incidents required careful investigation.

  By now Ryszard Malik had been dead for nearly ten days, and just about as much was known about who had killed him as on the day he died.

  Absolutely nothing, zilch.

  And January was still limping along.

  10

  The feeling of satisfaction was greater than she had expected.

  More profound and genuine than she could ever have imagined. For the first time in her adult life she had discovered meaning and equilibrium—or so she imagined. It was hard to put her finger on exactly what it was, but she could feel it in her body. Feel it in her skin and in her relaxed muscles; a sort of intoxication that spread among her nerve fibers like gently frothing bubbles, and kept her at a constantly elevated level of consciousness, totally calm and yet with a feeling of being on a high. As high as the sky. An orgasm, she thought in a state of exhilaration, an orgasm going on for an absurdly long period of time. Only very slowly and gently did it ebb away, subsiding lazily into expectation and anticipation of the next occasion. And the one after that.

  To kill.

  To kill those people.

  Some years ago she had been touched by religion, had been on the point of joining one of those religious sects that were springing up like mushrooms from the soil (or like mildew from the brain, as somebody had said), and she recognized her state from the way she had felt then. The only difference was that the religious bliss had passed over. Three or four days of ecstasy had given way to regret and a hangover, just like any other intoxication.

  But not now. Not this time. It was still there after ten days. Her whole being was filled with strength, her actions with determination and significance; on every occasion, no matter how trivial—like eating an apple, cutting her nails, or standing in line at the checkout of the local supermarket. Awareness and determination characterized everything she did, for even the most insignificant action was of course also another step on the way, another link in the chain leading ultimately to the next killing.

  To kill, and to kill. And eventually to close the circle that had been her mother's past and her own life. Her mission. There was a point to everything, at last.

  She read about her first deed in the newspapers. Bought the Neuwe Blatt, Telegraaf, and several others, and lay in her room studying all the speculations. She was surprised by all the attention it had attracted. How much would they write next time? And the time after that?

  She was slightly annoyed at the fact that she didn't have a television set; she even toyed with the idea of buying a little one, but decided not to. Or at least, to postpone doing so; perhaps she would be unable to resist the temptation of seeing and hearing about herself on the news on the next occasion, but it was best to bide her time. She could have sat in a café and watched, of course, but that didn't feel sufficiently attractive. Not sufficiently private.

  Because no matter what—this was a private affair, all of it. Between herself and her mother.

  Just her, her mother, and the names on the list.

  She had crossed one of them out now. Drawn a red circle around the one next in line. Late on Monday evening, she decided that the period of waiting should come to an end now. The scene was set. The stage design completed. Time to go out again. First the preludes, and then the act itself.

  The killing.

  A feeling of well-being spread underneath her skin, and when she closed her eyes, through the yellowish, fading glimmer, she could make out her mother's face.

  Her tired, but imperative, expression.<
br />
  Do something, my girl.

  IV

  January 30–

  February 1

  11

  When Rickard Maasleitner woke up on Tuesday morning, the headmaster's words were still ringing in his ears; and there was reason to suspect he had been dreaming about them all night.

  “You must understand that your being off work sick is not only a result of your allergy problems. It is also an opportunity for you to think things over. I want you to consider—and to consider very carefully—whether or not you really want to continue working here.”

  He had pushed his glasses down to the tip of his nose and leaned forward over his desk as he talked. Tried to look as fatherly and understanding as possible, despite the fact that they were more or less the same age and had known each other since they had first joined the teaching staff. During the Van Breukelen era.

  “You have plenty of time,” he had added. Put an arm around Maasleitner's shoulders for a moment as he left the room, and mumbled something about idealism and upbringing. In bad taste.

  Plenty of time?

  He turned over and checked the alarm clock in the bookcase. A quarter to ten.

  A quarter to ten on a Tuesday morning in January. Still in bed. A strange feeling, to say the least. Off sick for three weeks with allergy problems. Ah well—what it really meant was that he had been suspended from teaching for dragging a cheeky fifteen-year-old out into the corridor and telling him to go to hell. Or back to the country he came from, wherever that was. And boxed the ears of another one of similar ilk.

  And not regretted it for one moment.

  That was the crux of the matter. He had not apologized. Refused to crawl up to the cross. Both incidents had taken place during the hectic exam period at the beginning of December, and since then the wheels had been turning.

  Protests by pupils. The parents' association. A couple of articles in the newspapers. All the time there had been a door open for him, and, of course, he had been well aware of it—an escape route which would have enabled everybody concerned to draw a line under the whole business, if he would only acknowledge his guilt and beg for forgiveness.