Woman with Birthmark

by Håkan Nesser

  “Is it?” Münster wondered.

  “Can't you feel it?” asked Van Veeteren, raising an eyebrow in surprise. “Surely you don't imagine it's all over after these two? Malik and Maasleitner? The vaguer the link between the two of them, the more likely it is that they must be a part of a broader context—you don't need to complete the whole jigsaw puzzle in order to discover if it comprises a hundred or a thousand pieces.”

  Münster thought that one over.

  “What is it, then? The broader context, that is.”

  “A good question, Inspector. There's two guilders for you if you can answer it.”

  Münster finished his beer and started buttoning up his jacket.

  “I really must be going now,” he said. “I promised the babysitter I'd be home in half an hour.”

  “All right,” sighed the chief inspector. “All right, I'm coming.”

  “What shall we do?” Münster asked as he turned into Klagenburg. “Apart from waiting, I mean.”

  “Hmm,” said Van Veeteren. “I suppose we'll have to have another chat with the group comparatively close to Maasleitner. Given the absence of anything else so far.”

  “More questions, then?”

  “More questions,” said the chief inspector. “A hell of a lot more questions, and no sign of a good answer.”

  “Well, we mustn't lose heart,” said Münster, bringing the car to a halt.

  “Ouch,” said Van Veeteren as he started to get out of the car. “I'll be damned if I haven't pulled a muscle.”

  “Where?” asked Münster.

  “In my body,” said Van Veeteren.

  23

  It gradually dawned on him that he'd seen her for the first time at the soccer match on Sunday. Even if he didn't realize it until later.

  He'd gone to the match with Rolv, as usual, and she'd been sitting diagonally behind them, a couple of rows back—a woman with large, brown-tinted glasses and a colorful shawl that hid most of her hair. But it was dark, he remembered that distinctly: a few tufts had stuck out. Thirty years of age, or thereabouts. A bit haggard, but he didn't see much of her face.

  Later on, when he made an effort to think back and try to understand how he could recall her, he remembered turning around three or four times during the match. There had been a trouble-maker back there shouting and yelling and insulting the referee, making people laugh part of the time, but urging him to shut up as well. Biedersen had never really established who it was; but it must have been then, when he kept turning around and was distracted from the game itself, that he saw her.

  He didn't know at the time. Even so, he had registered and committed to memory what she looked like.

  She was wearing a light-colored overcoat, just like when she turned up the next time.

  · · ·

  Apart from that, almost everything else was different. No glasses, no colorful shawl, her dark hair in a bun, and it was astonishing that he could know nevertheless that it must be her. That was the moment he reacted. The new image was superimposed over the old one, and the penny dropped.

  Monday lunchtime. As usual, he was at Mix, with Henessy and Vargas. She came in and stood for ages at the desk, looking around—trying to give the impression that she was looking for an empty seat, presumably, but she wasn't. She was looking for him, and when she'd found him—which must have been at least a minute after he'd seen her—she continued to stand there.

  Just stood there. Smiled to herself, it seemed, but continued looking around the premises. Pausing to look more closely at him now and then, for a second or two; thinking back, he found it hard to recall how long this had gone on. It could hardly have been more than a few minutes, but somehow or other that short period felt longer, and afterward, it seemed to him longer than the whole lunch. He hadn't the slightest recollection of what he'd been talking to Henessy and Vargas about.

  Insofar as there were still any doubts, they were cast aside by what happened on Tuesday morning.

  It was about half past ten when he went to the post office in Lindenplejn to collect a parcel—and also to send advertising material to a few prospective customers in Oostwerdingen and Aarlach. Miss Kennan had been off work with the flu since the previous Monday, and there were things that couldn't be allowed to fester forever.

  He didn't see when she came in—there were a lot of people in the lines formed in front of the various windows. But suddenly he was aware of her presence—he sensed that she was somewhere behind him, just as she had been at the soccer match.

  He slowly turned his head, and identified her right away. In the line next to his. A few meters behind his back, three or four at most. She was wearing the shawl and the glasses again, but had on a brown jacket instead of the overcoat. She stood there without looking at him—or at least, not during the brief moment he dared to look at her—but with a slight, introverted smile. He chose to interpret the situation almost as a secret signal.

  After a short discussion with himself, Biedersen left his place in the line. Walked quickly out through the main entrance, continued across the street, and entered the newsagent's on the other side. Hid inside there for a few minutes, head down and leafing through a few magazines. Then he returned to the post office.

  She was no longer there. There was no other change in the line she'd been standing in. The man in the black leather jacket who'd been in front of her was still there. As was the young immigrant woman behind her. But the gap between them had closed.

  Biedersen hesitated for several seconds. Then he decided to put off whatever it was he was going to do, and returned to his office instead.

  He double-locked the door and flopped down behind his desk. Took out his notebook and a pen, and started drawing more or less symmetrical figures—a habit he'd formed while still at school and had resorted to ever since when faced with a problem.

  And as he sat there, filling page after page, then tearing them out, he asked himself if he'd ever been confronted by a bigger problem than this one. His conclusion that this woman was in fact following him—that it must be her—did not mean that the outcome was a foregone conclusion, no way. Having identified her meant he had a chance: a trump card he must be careful not to waste. The main thing, he convinced himself, was that he didn't let on that he had noticed her. Didn't let her realize that he knew who she was, and what was involved. That was obvious.

  The fact that he would have to kill her was another conviction that came early to him. The inevitability of this conclusion became clearer the more he thought about it—although you could say he had known from the start. He phoned Innings, but there was no reply. Perhaps that was just as well. He wouldn't have known how much to tell him, or what to have him do.

  It would be better to continue on his own to start with, he decided. The first couple of steps or so, at least. But no rush—the whole business was so delicately balanced. The main thing was to keep a cool head. The fact that he would have to kill her before she killed him didn't mean that he should just shoot her at the first opportunity, in broad daylight. He soon realized that there were only two possible alternatives: either he would have to shoot her in self-defense—wait until the last moment, as it were, with all the implied risks and uncertainties—or else … or else he would have to find a way to get rid of her without anyone suspecting him.

  Murder her, in other words.

  It didn't need much in the way of consideration before he concluded that the latter was the best way to proceed.

  That's simply the kind of man I am, he decided. And this is simply that kind of situation.

  He could feel something inside come alive as he reached these conclusions. A new source of energy, a new source of inspiration. In fact, he had known this all the time. This is what he had to do. He opened his desk drawer and took out the bottle of whiskey he always had concealed there. Took two deep swigs and felt the determination spreading throughout his body.

  This is the sort of man I am…. A new source of inspiration?

>   It hadn't been hard to make up his mind, but it would be much harder to decide how to proceed. Nevertheless, when he left his office at four that afternoon, he thought he had a good idea of what he was going to do.

  In outline, at least.

  It could hardly have been more than a pious hope on the part of Biedersen that he would come across her again that same evening; but when she turned up in the rain outside Kellner's, he had the feeling that something had short-circuited inside him. As if his heart had skipped a beat or two.

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Raised his newspaper so that it hid his face, and hoped that she hadn't seen him through the window.

  After a short pause she came in through the revolving doors. Looked around the quite large and well-attended restaurant, and eventually found a vacant table so far back that it was almost out of sight for Biedersen. Nevertheless, by turning his chair a fraction and leaning back, he could keep an eye on what she was up to. It was obvious that she intended to eat—Biedersen had only ordered a beer. He watched her hang her jacket over the back of her chair, subject the menu to lengthy scrutiny, and eventually order something complicated from the Indian waiter.

  Meanwhile, Biedersen paid his bill, and when the Indian waiter came to serve her meal, Biedersen made the most of the opportunity to slip into the men's room with his bag. He locked the door and proceeded to make use of the contents of his bag: a wig (it had been packed away in his cellar ever since he'd taken part in a jokey charade when a good friend had gotten married more than twenty years ago), an American military parka (which he'd forbidden Rolv to wear when he still lived at home), and a pair of round glasses of uncertain origin.

  And also a pistol: a Pinchman, loaded with six bullets.

  He checked his appearance in the scratched mirror, and, as far as he could make out, his disguise was just as effective as it had been when he tried it out in the bathroom mirror at home a couple of hours earlier.

  There was no obvious reason to assume that this superannuated hippie was in fact identical with the locally well-known and successful businessman W. S. Biedersen.

  No reason at all.

  For safety's sake he decided to wait for her in the square outside. For almost an hour he wandered up and down in the wind and the light, driving rain. After a while he bought a pack of cigarettes at a kiosk, and a hamburger shortly afterward. Called Innings from a phone box as well. Got through without delay but restricted himself to saying that something might well be about to happen and he would ring again later. Since meeting Innings the previous Friday, he had been unable to decide if his former colleague was a help or a hindrance, and he wondered if it would be best to ignore him altogether. That was his inclination at the moment.

  There were not very many people out on a wet, windy evening like today and his appearance and behavior seemed not to attract curious looks. He realized that people took him for a drifter, a natural if regrettable background figure in any town or any street scene anywhere in the world. The perfect camouflage. At one point he was even greeted by another of the same sort—an unpleasant-smelling elderly man with one hand in an incredibly dirty bandage—but he only needed to tell him to piss off in order to be left in peace without more ado.

  The clock on St. Mary's Church had just struck nine when she came out. She looked left and right several times, then walked rapidly across the square, passing by only a few meters away from him, and boarded one of the buses waiting outside the station.

  Biedersen hesitated for a few seconds before getting on the bus as well. He gathered it was going to Hengeloo, and bought a ticket to there. He had barely sat down six rows behind her when the bus shuddered and set off.

  It struck him how close he had been to losing her altogether, how small the margins were in this kind of situation, and he made up his mind to stick as close to her as possible in the future.

  They were traveling westward. Through Legenbojs and Maas. There were about a dozen passengers on board from the start, mostly elderly women with bulging plastic carrier bags and shopping baskets in their laps. A few youths were half asleep at the back with personal stereos turned up so that the high notes hovered over the muffled rumble of the engine like a cloud of buzzing insects. The driver occasionally stopped to pick up new passengers; a few got off as well, but not many—until after twenty-five minutes or so they came to the square at Berkinshaam, when more than half the passengers stood up and prepared to alight.

  He lost sight of her for a moment as a pair of old women stood up and fumbled around with their bags and baskets, and when they finally moved away he saw to his dismay that her seat was empty.

  He stood up and scanned the front part of the bus, but it was clear that she must have left via the doors next to the driver. When he tried to look out through the side windows, all he could see was his own unrecognizable face and other items reflected from inside the bus.

  As panic welled up inside him, he made a dash to get off the bus. Emerged into the dimly lit square and was lucky enough to see—what he assumed was, at any rate—her back as she turned into a narrow alley between high, dark gable ends.

  He slung his bag over his shoulder and rushed to follow her; when he came to the narrow entrance, once again he just caught sight of her back turning into another alley some twenty meters ahead. He swallowed. Realized that it was hardly a good idea to go careering after her now. He also managed to overcome his agitation and slow down his pace. He put his hand into his bag to check that the pistol was still there. He released the safety catch and left his hand in the bag.

  When he came to the inadequate streetlamp on the corner, he found that what she had turned into was a twenty-meter-long cul-de-sac culminating in a fire wall. The tall building on the left appeared to be a factory or a warehouse, without a single illuminated window. Nor could he make out an entrance or doorway on that side of the street; the only entrance of any description was a portal leading into the four- or five-story-high property on the right-hand side. He investigated and discovered that it was the entrance to a sort of tunnel running through the building and emerging into an inner courtyard, dimly lit by lights from various windows.

  Biedersen paused. Took a few steps into the tunnel, then paused again. An unpleasant smell was forcing its way into his nostrils. Something rotten, or at least damaged by damp. He listened, but all he could hear was rain falling on a tin roof somewhere in the courtyard. And the faint sound of a television set evidently standing close to an open window. On one of the upstairs floors facing the street, presumably. A cat appeared and rubbed up against his legs.

  Oh hell, he thought, clutching the pistol.

  And he acknowledged that the feeling bubbling up inside him was fear, nothing else.

  Pure, unadulterated fear.

  24

  When Innings got home after the restaurant meal with Biedersen, the first thing he did was to hide the bag containing the gun in a chest of drawers full of odds and ends in the garage. He knew that the risk of Ulrike or the children finding it there was more or less negligible, and he hoped sincerely that it would remain hidden forever. Or at least until he had an opportunity to get rid of it.

  His mind felt like a playground for a mass of the most divergent thoughts and ideas. As he sat on the sofa with Ulrike, watching a Fassbinder film, he tried to assess the most likely outcome of—or escape from—this nightmare. It seemed even harder now than it had been before. His thoughts were being tossed around like a straw in the wind, and he soon began to wish that he could simply switch off his brain. For a little while at least, in order to gain some breathing space.

  When it came to wishes and hopes, the situation was more straightforward. The most welcome development from his point of view would be for Biedersen to simply sort the whole business out by himself. Track down this madwoman and render her harmless, once and for all. Without any involvement on Innings's part.

  In view of what he discovered at the restaurant—regarding the telephone music and
so on—surely this was not an altogether unlikely outcome?

  Innings came back to this conclusion over and over again, but his assessment of it, like the rest of his thoughts, kept swinging back and forth between hope and something that was most reminiscent of deepest despair.

  In fact—and, gradually, this became the only consolation he could find—there was only one thing he could be absolutely sure of.

  Something would happen soon.

  This period of suspense would come to an end.

  In a few days—a week, perhaps—it would all be over.

  Any other outcome was unthinkable.

  Given these hopes—which Innings began to cherish even before he went to bed on Friday evening—there is no denying that it was very stressful to have to accept that nothing in fact happened.

  On Saturday and for half of Sunday they had visitors—Ulrike's brother with his wife and two children—and the practical things that needed to be done and the conversation helped to keep the worry at a distance. For part of the time, at least. But things became much worse after they had left, and peace and quiet returned to the house on Sunday afternoon.

  It was worse still on Monday, which floated by in a cloud of listlessness and worry. That night he had barely a wink of sleep, and when he left the editorial office at about four on Tuesday afternoon, he had the distinct impression that several of his colleagues were wondering about the state of his health.

  He had told Ulrike that he was a bit upset because of the murder of two of his former colleagues when he was a National Serviceman, and she seemed to accept this as a reasonable explanation for his occasional preoccupation.

  And then, on Tuesday evening, the telephone call came at last from Biedersen. Something might be about to happen, he said, but there was no reason for Innings to do anything. Not yet, at least.