Woman with Birthmark

by Håkan Nesser

  Van Veeteren handed it over, and Reinhart read it.

  I'm. waiting for you. Jelena Walgens

  can tell you where I am.

  Two lines. No signature.

  What the hell? thought Reinhart. And then he said it out loud.

  43

  They parked at what seemed to be a safe distance, and got out of the car. It wasn't completely dark yet, and it was easy to pick out the outlines of the houses at the edge of the lake. The wind was now no more than a distant whisper in the forests to the northeast, and the air felt almost warm, Van Veeteren noticed.

  Spring? he thought, somewhat surprised. Reinhart cleared his throat.

  “It must be that cottage farthest away,” he said. “There doesn't seem to be anybody at home in any of them.”

  “Some people occasionally manage to sleep at night,” said Van Veeteren.

  They continued walking along the narrow dirt road.

  “Do you think she's in there?”

  “I don't dare to think anything about this case anymore,” said Van Veeteren, sounding somewhat subdued. “But no matter what, we need to get in there and take a look. Or do you think we should summon Ryman's heavy tank brigade?”

  “Good God, no,” said Reinhart. “It takes four days to mobilize them. Let's go in. I'll lead the way if you like.”

  “The hell you will,” said Van Veeteren. “I'm oldest. You can keep in the background.”

  “Your word is my command,” said Reinhart. “For what it's worth, I don't think she's at home.”

  Crouching down, and with quite a long distance between them, they approached the ramshackle gray house with the sagging roof. Slunk slowly but deliberately over the damp grass, and when there was only another ten meters or so still to go, Van Veeteren launched the attack by rushing forward and pressing himself up against the wall, right next to the door. Reinhart followed him and doubled up under one of the windows.

  This is ridiculous, Van Veeteren thought as he tried to get his breath back, keeping tight hold of his standard-issue pistol. What the hell are we doing?

  Or is it serious business?

  He forced the door open with a bang and charged in. Ran around for a few seconds, kicking in doors, but he soon established that the cottage was just as empty as Reinhart had anticipated.

  If she was going to shoot us, she'd have done so long ago, he thought, putting his pistol away in his pocket.

  He went into the biggest of the three rooms, found a switch, and turned on the light. Reinhart came in and looked around.

  “There's a letter here, addressed to you,” he said, pointing to the table.

  The chief inspector came forward to pick it up. Weighed it in his hand.

  The same sort of envelope.

  The same handwriting.

  Addressed to the same person.

  Detective Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, Maardam.

  And the feeling that he was dreaming simply refused to go away.

  · · ·

  The precision, Van Veeteren thought. It's this damned precision that makes it all so unreal. There's no such thing as coincidence, Reinhart had said; but in fact the reverse was true. He understood that now. When the feeling of coincidence suddenly disappears completely, that's when we find it difficult to rely on our senses. To have faith in what they tell us about happenings and connections.

  Yes, that must be how things work, more or less.

  There were two basket chairs in the room. Reinhart had already sat down on one of them and lit his pipe. The chief inspector sat on the other one and started to read.

  It took him only a couple of minutes, and when he had finished, he read it once again. Then he looked at the clock and handed the letter to Reinhart without a word.

  At my mother's interment there was only a single mourner. Me.

  Time is short, and I shall express myself briefly. I don't need your understanding, but I want you to know who these men were, the men I have killed. My mother told me—a week before she died—about how I was conceived.

  My father was four men. It was the night of May 29–30, 1965. She was seventeen years old, and a virgin. They raped her repeatedly for two hours in a student room in Maardam, and in order to stop her screaming they had stuffed one of the men's underpants into her mouth. One of the other men's tie was knotted around her mouth and the back of her neck. They also played music while I was being made. The same record, over and over again—afterward she found out what the tune was called, and bought it. I still have it.

  Once they had finished impregnating my mother, they carried her out and dumped her in some bushes in a nearby park. One of my fathers said that she was a whore, and that he'd kill her if she told anybody what had happened.

  My mother duly kept silent, but after two months she began to suspect that she was pregnant. After three, she was certain. She was still at school. She tried to kill me, using various tricks and methods she had heard about, but failed. I just wish she had managed it better.

  She spoke to her mother, who didn't believe her.

  She spoke to her father, who didn't believe her and gave her a good hiding.

  She spoke to her clever elder sisters, who didn't believe her either, but advised her to have an abortion.

  But it was too late. I wish it hadn't been.

  My grandfather gave her a small sum of money in order to get rid of us, and I was born a long way away in Groenstadt. That's also where I grew up. My mother had found out my fathers' names, and was given some money by them when she threatened to expose them. When I was ten, she threatened them again, and received some more money, but that was all. They paid. They could afford it.

  I knew from an early age that my mother was a whore, and I knew that I would become one as well. And the same applied to drinking and drug-taking

  But I didn't know why things were as they were, not until she told me about my fathers shortly before she died.

  My mother was forty-seven when she died. I am only thirty, but I've been whoring and taking drugs for so long that I look at least ten years older. I received my first clients before my fifteenth birthday.

  In addition, I have the urge to kill inside me. I was told the facts in October, and when I got to know my fathers a bit later on, I made up my mind.

  It was a good decision.

  My mother's life was a torment. Torment and indignity.

  So was my own. But it was good to understand, to understand at last. I could see the logic. What else could possibly be the outcome of a night of lovemaking like the one when my fathers brought me to life?

  What life?

  I am the ripe fruit that grew out of a gang bang. It is that same fruit that is now killing its fathers.

  That is completing the circle.

  To be sure, that sounds like a sort of dark poetry. In a different life I could have become a poet instead. I could have written and read—I had the ability inside me, but never had the opportunity.

  When I have finished, nothing living involved in that night will have survived. We shall all be dead. That is the logical outcome.

  My mother—who had my father's underpants stuffed into her mouth while the act of love took place—gave me the task, and in her name I have murdered them all. Doing so has given me great joy, more joy than anything else in my life. At no point have I felt any guilt or regret, and nobody will ever come and call me to account.

  I am also pleased that my mother saved some of the money she extracted from my fathers. It has been a great help to me, and I like the thought that in this way they have paid for their own deaths.

  I say again: it has given me great satisfaction to kill my own fathers. Very great satisfaction.

  I have been very precise all the time, and want to continue in that way to the very end. I am writing for two reasons. In the first place, I want the real reasons to be known. In the second place, I need to gain time—that is also why I left a note at the inn as well. If you are reading this letter at the time I intend
ed and am hoping for, I have achieved my aims.

  At ten p.m. I shall be on the ferry that leaves Oostwerdingen and heads for the islands; but I shall not be on board when it calls at its first port.

  I shall be carrying substantial weights that will drag me down to the bottom of the sea, where I hope the fish will soon have chewed away my tainted flesh.

  I never want to come to the surface again. Not one single part of me.

  Reinhart folded the sheets of paper and put them back into the envelope. Then he sat for some time without speaking while he lit his pipe, which had gone out.

  “What is there to say?” he said eventually.

  The chief inspector was leaning back in the chair and had closed his eyes.

  “Nothing,” he said. “You don't need to say anything at all.”

  “No signature.”

  “No.”

  “It's a quarter to one.”

  Van Veeteren nodded. Sat up and lit a cigarette. Inhaled a few times. Stood up, walked across the room, and switched off the light.

  “What's the first port of call?” he asked when he had sat down again.

  “Arnholt, I think,” said Reinhart. “At around one.”

  “Yes,” said Van Veeteren. “That sounds about right. Go out to the car and try to make contact with the ferry. They can search the ship when it docks. She might have changed her mind.”

  “Do you think she did?” asked Reinhart.

  “No,” said Van Veeteren. “But we must continue playing our roles to the very end.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” said Reinhart. “The show must go on.”

  Then he went out and left the chief inspector alone in the darkness.

  44

  She locked the door, and almost immediately the ferry set off. Through the oval, convex porthole she could watch the harbor lights glide past before disappearing. This was her final extravagance: a single cabin up on B-deck. It had cost her more or less everything she had left; but this was no mere whim. This too was a necessity and a logical requirement. She needed to be alone in order to make the final preparations, and there was no other way of ensuring that.

  She checked her watch: seven minutes past ten. She sat down on the bed and felt the newly laundered sheet and the warm, red blanket with the shipping line's logo. She unscrewed the bottle and threw the cap into the waste bin, then drank directly from the bottle. Half a liter of cognac. Four star. An inferior sort would have served the same purpose, of course, but there had been just enough money. Four-star cognac. Single cabin with a wine-red blanket and wall-to-wall carpet. The final extravagance, as mentioned.

  She had two hours to spare; that was in accordance with her timetable. Calculated from the moment she had seen the police car on the road outside the inn. No matter how efficiently they worked—and hitherto they hadn't exactly displayed much in the way of proficiency—it would be impossible for them to trace her here before midnight. First of all there was the crime scene, and the chaos at the inn; then they would have to find Jelena Wal-gens, conduct a confusing conversation with her, and then drive back to Wahrhejm—she was convinced that this chief inspector wouldn't delegate anything of this nature to his subordinates. Then the telephone call to the ferry…. No, anything less than two hours was out of the question.

  Half past eleven, to be on the safe side. Ninety minutes in her own cabin on B-deck, that would have to be enough. It felt remarkably satisfying to be able to plan her own demise at last, not only that of others. She tipped the contents of her bag onto the floor. It would be as well to prepare things right away, in case anything went wrong. She found the end of the steel chain, and pulled up her sweater in order to expose her torso. Took another swig of cognac. Lit a cigarette before starting to wind the pliable steel around her waist. Slowly and methodically, round and round, exactly as she'd done it when practicing.

  Heavy, but easy to handle. She had chosen the chain carefully. Seven meters long and eighteen kilos. Steel links. Cold and heavy. When she had finished winding she tightened it a little bit more, then fixed it in place with the padlock. She stood up and checked the weight and her ability to move.

  Yes, everything was in order.

  Heavy enough to make her sink. But not too heavy. She needed to be able to walk. And clamber over the rail.

  Another cigarette.

  A drop more cognac.

  A warm and conclusive wave of intoxication had started to flow through her body. She leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. Listened to, or rather felt, the vibrations of the heavy engines that were transmitted through her skull like a distant and pointless attempt at communicating. Nothing else. The drink and the smoke, nothing more. And the vibrations.

  One more hour, she thought. It will be all over in another hour.

  Just one more hour.

  The wind took hold of her and threatened to throw her backward. For a moment she was afraid that she might have miscalculated, but then she caught hold of the stair rail and recovered her balance. Stood up straight and closed the door.

  The darkness was compact and the wind roared. She slowly worked her way into the wind, down the narrow, soaking-wet passageway along the length of the ship.

  Farther and farther forward. The rail was no more than chest high, and there were crossbars to climb up on. More or less ideal, for whatever reason. All that remained was to choose the right place. She continued a bit farther. Came to a staircase with a chain across it; a sign swaying and clanking in the wind indicated that passengers were forbidden to venture up the stairs.

  She looked around. No sign of a soul. The sky was dark and motionless, with occasional patches of light. The sea was black; no reflections. When she leaned out and looked down, she could barely make it out.

  Darkness. Darkness everywhere.

  The muffled vibrations of the ship's engines. Gusts of wind and salt spray. Waves whipped up by the rotating propellers.

  All alone. Cold, despite the cognac.

  No other passengers had been bold enough to venture out on deck at this time of night. Not in this weather. They were all inside. In the bars. In the wine-red restaurant. At the disco or in their warm cabins.

  Inside.

  She clambered up. Sat on the rail for a second before kicking off with all the strength she could muster and flinging herself outward.

  She entered the water curled up in the fetal position, and the slight fear she had had of being sucked in by the propellers faded away as she was rapidly—much more rapidly than she had been able to imagine—dragged down into the depths.

  45

  While they were waiting for the expected call, two others came.

  The first was from the duty officer in Maardam and concerned information from Inspector Heinemann about another possible link on the basis of bank-account information. It was by no means certain, but there was evidence to suggest that a certain Werner Biedersen had made an unmotivated transaction transferring money from his firm to a private account (with subsequent withdrawals) in the beginning of June, 1976; however, Heinemann had not yet been able to find a withdrawal corresponding to the amount in question.

  Mind you—it was admitted—it could well be a question of a gambling debt or a few fur coats for his wife or some mistress, or God only knows what. In any case, the inspector would be in touch again within the next few days.

  “Good timing,” said Reinhart for the second time that evening, but the chief inspector didn't even sigh.

  “Say something sensible,” he said instead, after a few minutes of silence in the darkness.

  Reinhart struck a match and went to considerable lengths to light his pipe before answering.

  “I think we're going to make a child,” he said.

  “A child?” said the chief inspector.

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “Me,” said Reinhart. “And a woman I know.”

  “How old are you?” asked the chief inspector.

  “What the
hell does that have to do with it?” said Reinhart. “But she'll soon be forty, so it's about time.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” said the chief inspector.

  Another minute passed.

  “Well, I suppose I ought to congratulate you,” said the chief inspector eventually. “I didn't even know you had a woman.”

  “Thank you,” said Reinhart.

  The other call was from Munckel, who reported the result of the preliminary medical examination. Werner Biedersen had been killed by a Berenger-75; three bullets in the chest, fired from a distance of about one meter. Two further bullets below the belt from about ten centimeters. Death had been more or less instantaneous, and had taken place at about ten minutes past nine.

  Van Veeteren thanked the caller and hung up.

  “There was something about that scene,” he said after a while.

  Reinhart's chair creaked in the darkness.

  “I know,” he said. “I've been thinking about it.”

  The chief inspector sat in silence for some time, searching for words. The clock on the wall between the two rectangular windows seemed to make an effort, but didn't have the strength to strike. He looked at his watch.

  Half past one. The ferry must have been moored in Arnholt for at least half an hour by now. They ought to hear from there any minute now.

  “That scene,” he said again.

  Reinhart lit his pipe for the twentieth time.

  “All the women in there … International Women's Day …,” Van Veeteren went on. “A man shot below the belt in the toilets … by his daughter, dressed as a man … a thirty-year-old rape … International Women's Day …”

  “That's enough,” interrupted Reinhart. “Let's talk about something else.”

  “All right,” said Van Veeteren. “Probably just as well. But it was stage-managed, that's obvious.”

  Reinhart inhaled deeply several times.

  “It always is,” he said.

  “Eh?” said the chief inspector. “What do you mean?”